Jilted mother of two stands trial at Old Bailey

A Chiswick businesswoman hired a ‘hit-man’ to murder her former lover and his new wife the Old Bailey heard this week.

Carol Ann Hunter, who shared her Barrowgate Road home with her former partner, is said to have developed an “uncontrolled hatred and unbridled contempt” when she was jilted in favour of his college sweetheart.

Lecturer Colin Love left Hunter, with whom he has two children, to marry Judith Crowshaw. When the new couple moved into the Bedfordshire home bought by Hunter and Love during their 22 year relationship, Hunter began writing a series of vitriolic e-mails calling his new wife an "old bitch whore" and claiming that they were benefiting from all her hard work.

Prosecuting council Robin Johnson claimed that Hunter feared Love would disinherit their two children and she would lose her investment in the family’s country house and for these reasons she decided to have him and his new wife killed.

Hunter turned to her new partner Financial Advisor Anton Lee for advice on how to arrange the murder. Speaking in court Lee told of his shame after contacting a hitman - who turned out to be an undercover policeman - on behalf of his new lover.

During two meetings with the undercover policeman, Hunter, a former executive with Unilever and Rimmel, reportedly said that she did not have a moral dilemma about killing, but felt that maiming Mrs Love would be better.

“That desire, whether to kill or maim, may well have been born from the uncontrollable hatred of the fact that her partner of 22 years and father of her two children had rejected her and formed a relationship with another woman and gone on to marry her.” said Johnson.

The case continues.

December 15, 2006