A former Tory councillor accused of murdering his wife by driving over her as she lay on the ground told a court that they loved each other.
David Turtle, 67, was speaking on the opening day of the hearing into accusations that he deliberately ran his Mercedes over Stephanie, 50, after a row at their new home in Prayssac, southwest France. Cahors criminal court was told that Turtle, who was previously a councillor in Bournemouth, accelerated over her as she lay in front of the vehicle in March 2017.
Police said one theory was that she lay down to prevent him driving away after a marital dispute but that he had done so anyway. A second was that she received a blow to the head during the row and was placed unconscious in front of the Mercedes.
Turtle denies murder and says his wife’s death was an accident. He told police he had wanted to go for a drive after arguing with his wife and did not realise she was in front of the vehicle, the court heard.
He said he had quit as a councillor to follow his wife to France, where she dreamt of setting up a B&B. Turtle said it “made me sad” to leave the council but “my priority in my life has always been Stephanie”.
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“We found this house . . . It was perfect but needed a lot of work,” he said. “We were very happy. We did that to be together. We loved each other a lot.”
He added: “I loved my wife. What happened has broken my heart.”
Turtle said he had joined the RAF after leaving school before working in shoe shops for 20 years and then for Peugeot and Mercedes. He said he had met his wife in Turkey during a holiday for single people in 1996. “We were drawn to each other,” he said.
Major Alain Chauvin, a former police officer who headed the investigation before his retirement, told the court that none of the witnesses questioned in connection with the death believed it was accidental. He said Turtle’s wife could not have got in front of the car without him seeing her.
The officer added that Turtle’s explanations were “incoherent” and said that it was “very difficult to determine if what he says is true”.
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Edouard Martial, a defence lawyer, contested the officer’s evidence. “You don’t know anything. There is nothing that leads us to lean either towards the theory that it was accidental or towards the theory that it was a deliberate act.”
Dr Jean-Marc Blandin, a psychiatrist who examined Turtle after his wife died, described him as of “normal intelligence” with an “obsessional type of psychic profile”, but added that he was an “educated and responsible man”.
The trial continues.