Cancer victim 'killed wealthy lover'

JONATHAN FOSTER

Lethal doses of painkiller were added to a millionaire's supper by the terminally ill woman he thought was his wife, a court heard yesterday.

Lynn Lowey, 39, wanted Ian Whalley's money and his life. She knew she had only nine months to live when she spiked his chicken stew and jacket potatoes with drugs prescribed to ease the pain of her cancer, magistrates in Huyton, Merseyside, were told.

Mrs Lowey denies murdering Mr Whalley, 56, between 7-8 January. She faces further charges of poisoning, bigamy and fraudulent benefit claims.

Reporting restrictions were lifted during the hearing as Paul Becker, for the prosecution, said Mrs Lowey met Mr Whalley five years ago. The relationship was "stormy" and punctuated by several separations. But in April 1994 Mrs Lowey went through a marriage ceremony to the "prosperous but frugal" Mr Whalley in Gibraltar.

Her first marriage had been dissolved in 1985. Her second, to John Lowey, bore two children. The couple separated in 1989, with custody of their children awarded to their father.

The Lowey marriage was never ended, so the Gibraltar ceremony was bigamous, Mr Becker said. But Mrs Lowey lived as man and wife with Mr Whalley at Bold, near St Helens.

On 8 January, his body was found by his son by his late wife in the caravan he shared with Mrs Lowey during construction of a new home. A post-mortem examination of the body revealed fatal quantities of morphine and Temazepam. Two of Mrs Lowey's cousins had told police that she was "obsessed with money", wanted Mr Whalley dead, but also wanted a share of his wealth. The cousins would give evidence that she told them: "No more Ian. Now I'm free."

Mrs Lowey was charged last week and remanded to Risley prison, Cheshire.

Graham Simpson, for Mrs Lowey, said the cousins' evidence would be challenged. Mr Whalley could not face the fact that the woman he thought his wife had terminal cancer; his wife of 28 years had also died of cancer.

Opposing a further remand in custody, Mr Simpson denied prosecution claims that Mrs Lowey would, if bailed, pose a risk of interfering with witnesses, abscond, or commit suicide. "She wants to establish her innocence, then die," he said.

Magistrates refused bail; she was remanded in custody for seven days.