Last updated 14:24, Tuesday, 11 November 2008

The secret lover of a Cumbrian farmer accused of murdering his wife today told the jury of the moment they met in a Spanish bar.

Kathy McNeil

Kathy McNeil took to the stand during day six of Robert Wilson’s trial at Carlisle Crown Court.

The 40-year-old farmer and former Story Rail worker is accused of murdering his 53-year-old wife Jane at their Kirkandrews-on-Eden farm last December.

The prosecution say that Wilson had taken a secret lover before killing his wife then covering up the crime by staging a tractor accident in a barn.

Police began investigating after Mrs Wilson’s adult children from a previous marriage discovered their stepfather had been seeing another woman, it has been alleged.

Wilson denies murder.

Mrs McNeil, a divorced mother-of-two, began giving evidence at 12.15pm.

It had previously been stated that she knew nothing of Wilson’s marriage.

Often close to tears, she told the court she was working in a bar in Marbella when Wilson came in during October 2006.

“He ordered a Baileys and ice. There were not many people in there so we started talking,” she said.

“I remember because he asked me what a nice girl like me was doing in a place like that?”

Although not the nicest bar in the affluent area, “it was a job”, she added.

The pair got talking and Wilson told Mrs McNeil he was in Marbella for two or three days to relive memories of a holiday he had shared with his wife.

“He said she had died at the beginning of 2006 of cancer,” she continued.

“I felt sorry for him. He asked a little bit about what I was doing there. I told him I had to work and about my son.

“He told me he had also lost the love of his life - someone called Liz - when he was 18. She had died of a brain tumour. I thought ‘what an unlucky guy’.”

Wilson told her he was a farmer, worked on the railways and was from Carlisle.

He then returned a second night and the pair continued to talk.

Because they both seemed to be in sad situations - with Mrs McNeil having to take on three jobs following her divorce from her second husband - she said it was easy to talk.

The Cumbrian asked her out for dinner, but she declined his offer, telling the court she remained “fresh” and “hurting” from her ex-husband.

She did, however, give him her mobile phone number but warned that she would change it if he started harassing her.

“I felt safe because he was going home to England,” said Mrs McNeil, who was dressed in a dark suit and grey polo-necked jumper.

As the pair parted that night, they shared a traditional European four-kiss goodbye - and Wilson grabbed hold of her.

Mrs McNeil, who told the jury she thought Wilson had been “a bit forward” in his actions, then warned him to be careful of girls on the street who would offer themselves to men.

“I told him to be careful, that there were expensive, beautiful girls. He said ‘why would I bother with them when I might have a chance with someone like you?’,” she told the court.

Mrs McNeil, who had lived in Spain since 2003 and before that had lived in France for 12 or 13 years, was due to continue giving evidence this afternoon. She had separated from her husband, from whom she divorced in September 2006, in 2004.

The trial continues.