Businessman wanted killer to spare him divorce bill

A businessman who wanted to avoid paying his wife a large divorce settlement attempted to hire a hitman to smash a lorry into her car and murder her, it was revealed yesterday.

George Fallows, 57, believed he had offered a contract killer £10,000 to murder his 35-year-old wife, Karen, in a fake road accident. But the hitman was, in fact, an undercover police officer, who recorded the entire, extraordinary plan.

Detectives secretly took Mrs Fallows into hiding, faked an accident scene in case her husband went to check that the crash had taken place, then arrested him at his home on the night of the planned accident, 10 September last year.

Mr Fallows, a property investor of Llangernyw, north Wales, pleaded guilty at Caernarfon Crown Court yesterday to soliciting the murder of his wife. Judge John Rogers told him to expect a "substantial period of imprisonment" when he is sentenced next month.

Mrs Fallows, who has an 11-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son by Fallows, said she felt "relieved and numb" after her ordeal. Speaking at a press conference after her husband had pleaded guilty, she said: "I was very frightened, shocked, worried for myself and the children. They weren't aware of what exactly was happening but to be taken out of the home, to go away, they knew something was up."

Once, during the investigation, she had heard footsteps in her garden. "I just froze, I didn't know which way to turn," she recalled.

Police began an operation against Fallows on 29 August last year when they became aware that he was seeking to recruit a contract killer. The previous month, his wife had left the family home at Llangernyw to live in a nearby village, having started divorce proceedings after nine years of marriage.

Initially, Mrs Fallows was unaware of the threat to her life. Then police broke the news to her and family liaison officers remained with her and the children at a number of secret locations.

An undercover police officer posing as a contract killer was introduced to Fallows, who identified a particular stretch of country lane as the best site for an accident and stipulated a specific time when he knew his wife would be returning from an evening class. The £10,000 fee was to be paid on completion of the murder.

On the night in question, a woman police officer assumed the role of Mrs Fallows and drove her red Peugeot for the mock crash.

Detective Superintendent Ross Duffield, who headed the operation, said: "Quite clearly Mr Fallows' intention was to have his wife murdered. There's no question about that."