Mortgage broker '£300k in debt paid up wife's life insurance before murder'

A MORTGAGE broker struggling under a £300,000 "mountain of debt" strangled his wife just days after bringing her life insurance policy payments up to date, a jury heard.

- Paul Jeeves

Robert Hammond, 47, is alleged to have murdered Sian in order to pocket a £450,000 "prize" whilst under crippling "financial pressures".

He dialled 999 just before 2am on October 30 last year claiming to have found his wife face down on the bed and not breathing.

Christopher Paxton KC told Cambridge Crown Court that Sian, 46, was pronounced dead by medics who attended the family home in Histon, Cambridgeshire.

The barrister said that a post-mortem examination established she had been strangled and sustained other injuries including an intimate one.

The court was told the father-oftwo, who ran a business called Hammond Mortgage Services, owed around £200,000 to Legal and General.