Judge allows taped murder 'confession' to be made public: Former suspect cleared by court is heard telling an undercover policewoman that he strangled wife and burnt her body

A TRIAL judge last night ruled that a surreptitious police tape recording in which a man admits killing his wife could be made public, even though a jury had acquitted him of her murder.

Keith Hall, 38, from Pudsey, near Leeds, in West Yorkshire, was found not guilty of the murder or manslaughter of his wife, Patricia, 39, by a jury of six men and six women after a nine-day trial.

On the tape, however, he is heard admitting to an undercover policewoman, of whose true identity he was unaware, that he had strangled her and burnt her body.

The jury at Leeds Crown Court had not been allowed to hear the recording made by the policewoman, known only as Liz, who had purposely met Mr Hall through a lonely hearts' club. He was said to have fallen in love with her.

Last night, despite the release of the tape recording, Mr Hall insisted that he had not murdered his wife. In a statement read by his solicitor, Rodney Lester, he said he was 'greatly relieved' by the trial verdict that he did not kill his wife, and pleaded with her to call him and return home. He said: 'I am only too painfully aware that over the last two years, by Chinese whispers, the case has been tried many times over.

'I hope everyone will now accept I did not murder my wife. It remains a mystery to me as to where she is and why she has never returned.'

Immediately after the trial the judge hearing the case, Mr Justice Waterhouse, lifted a ban on the use of the tape which had been placed during the trial under the Contempt of Court Act of 1981.

He also lifted a similar restriction on the publication of photographs of Mr Hall.

In court the conversation, made on a hidden recorder worn by the policewoman, had been heard in the absence of the jury during legal argument over its admissibility as evidence. But the judge ruled that it could not be put before the jury because it was 'unreliable' as evidence and breached rules governing questioning individuals.

Mr Hall's wife, who had had mental problems and been treated at a psychiatric hospital and was about to commence divorce proceedings, disappeared without trace in 1992.

The jury had heard that Mr Hall told police she left home in the family car in the middle of the night, after an argument. The car was later found abandoned a mile from the house.

Police suspected she had been murdered, partly because her bank account had never been used, but they were unable to find Mrs Hall's body. They then devised a plan to try to trap Mr Hall by allowing an undercover policewoman called Liz to date the man after he had advertised in a lonely hearts' club.

During the conversation in which Mr Hall apparently admits the killing, Liz, who met Mr Hall six times over a four-month period between November 1992 and February last year, faked being upset.

Detective Inspector Jim Bancroft, who led the investigation, said the police were not looking for anyone else in connection with the disappearance of Mrs Hall.

(Photograph omitted)