Therapist accused of murder: 'My soul is gone'

An alternative therapist accused of murdering his young lover in Dublin broke down in tears today as he told the jury at his trial: “My soul has gone.”

Christopher Newman, 62, denies murdering 28-year-old Georgina Eager, but admits the killing, pleading self-defence.

He told the jury at Inner London Crown Court that the pair had a row that spilled on to the street on May 21, 2003.

The couple worked together at his clinic in St Peter’s Road, Dublin, and became lovers shortly after she joined in summer 2002.

He described how the relationship began to break down after he became upset after watching a video of her massaging a naked man earlier that month.

Miss Eager was also angry, he said, because she thought he had invaded her privacy by making a threatening call to a man who was interested in her.

Newman, of Catford, south east London, told the jury of the row leading up to Miss Eager’s death. He said he came back from the local chemist to find her drinking alone.

“She said that you don’t interfere with my privacy. I said just a moment, please take a seat, I said, ’What do you mean I don’t interfere with your privacy ? You have no respect for me?’

“She must know that I won’t accept any more disrespect.”

The court heard that he then told her to leave, saying: “My heart is broken, you must go.”

Earlier, the court heard how Newman had withdrawn €1,200 from Miss Eager's bank account and fled to London after repeatedly knifing her.

Police had to break down the door to her ground-floor bedroom next to the clinic following her death, the court heard.

Jurors were told officers found her face down with a knife in the back of her neck, and a post-mortem examination showed she had been stabbed 29 times.

Today, Newman told the court that on the evening of May 21, Miss Eager told him she was leaving and asked him to move his car.

But she was “not fit to drive” because she had been drinking and the couple argued on the street, he said.

He persuaded her to go back inside the flat and have some coffee to calm down, the court heard.

“I told her straight away. I said that you have lost total respect, most importantly for yourself, not only for me and the clinic.”

Miss Eager then decided to leave the flat again and began walking to a minicab office to take a taxi to her parents’ house, Newman told the court.

Earlier, he told the jury he had tried to get Miss Eager to take some time off because she was “very unstable” and “destroying” him.

“Then I told her, I said: ‘You know that I will not compromise anything that would interfere (with) my competence to practise.

“‘If you are going to screw my brain up like that, I can’t get up in the morning and attend my clinic.'”

He also felt frightened because she made him feel weak, the court heard.

He said: “I was very frightened when she was with me. I thought she was, at the very same time, very seductive, very mesmerising, I felt weak.”

He added that he was not a jealous or possessive man.

“If you want something from someone, you can’t buy it with money, you can’t buy true love,” he said.