'Wife killed for discovering debts'

A businessman battered his schoolteacher wife to death after she discovered he had lost their life savings on the stockmarket, a court heard today.

Maurice Pearson, 56, attacked his wife Irena after she called their building society to check on their account, it is alleged.

She found out her husband of 25 years had blown tens of thousands of pounds on internet share dealing and they had a violent row, a jury heard.

Pearson, a retired IT consultant for Barclays Bank, allegedly struck his wife 15 times about the head with a blunt instrument in the kitchen of their ?400,000 home. Spatters of blood were found on the walls and ceiling. Afterwards he dumped his bloodstained clothes and went shopping to give himself an alibi, the prosecution claimed.

Pearson then returned home to make the "gruesome discovery".

But within days detectives realised Mrs Pearson, 50, had been killed by her husband and not an intruder as he had claimed, the jury heard.

Jane Miller QC, prosecuting, told the court the Pearsons lived a "happy and unremarkable" life in Poole, Dorset, and appeared comfortably well-off. Their son Peter, 22, was at university studying computing and 18-year-old daughter Jessica was studying for her A-levels at grammar school.

Five years ago Pearson received an ?80,000 redundancy package from Barclays and had recently become involved in share dealing over the internet.

Miss Miller said he lost " thousands of pounds" and had tried to cover the losses by taking out a loan and increasing the debt on their credit cards. She said on the morning of 13 February Mrs Pearson called the Portman building society to question a withdrawal of ?800.

Pearson denies murder. The trial continues.