Nine-hour terror of yacht widow seized by pirates

A BRITISH woman told today how she escaped from pirates who had killed her husband and held her prisoner on the couple's yacht for nine hours.

Linda Robertson, 57, said she heard her husband Malcolm, 64, challenge three Burmese men armed with machetes and hammers after they clambered aboard off Thailand.

It is believed they bludgeoned him, cut his throat and threw his body overboard before tying her up naked like a "trussed chicken". Every time they came to check on her, she thought they were going to kill her.

She remembers "walking in my husband's blood" on the deck. The men ransacked the boat before leaving on a dinghy but the engine stopped. As they tried to paddle back to the 44ft yacht Mr Bean, she pulled up the anchor, started the engine and escaped. Her husband's body has not been found. The couple, from St Leonards, East Sussex, had spent the last 10 years sailing round the world.

Both have children from previous relationships. All four of them - Darren, 37, Ben, 34, Tara, 39, and Dean, 34 - are now on their way to Thailand.

Mrs Robertson was today making an emotional return to the yacht to help the investigation. She refused to let their children accompany her, saying: "I need to do this alone." Her sister-in-law Patricia Clee said she had been totally traumatised but "is a bit stronger at the moment".