Mystery over judge’s death may never be solved

AFTER a six-year legal battle and two inquests, the mistress of a judge found dead after a mysterious fire at his country home admitted yesterday she might never know how he died.

Kerry Sparrow, 38, won her long-running fight to have a second inquest held into her lover Andrew Chubb’s death in July 2001 after exposing a series of flaws in the original police investigation.

But a coroner admitted the fresh inquiry might have “raised more questions” than answers after ruling there was not enough evidence to return suicide or accidental death as verdicts.

Sheriff Payne, however, cleared Mr Chubb’s wife Jennifer, 60, of any involvement in his death.

Speaking after the five-day inquest ended in Glastonbury, Somerset, Miss Sparrow told reporters: “I will probably never know for sure what happened on the night Andrew died.”

Judge Chubb, 58, is thought to have perished in a blaze at his farmhouse near Chard, Somerset, just over an hour after telling his wife he was ending their 34-year marriage.

She told police he had calmly walked out of the house and into the garden shed.

Ms Chubb said he refused to discuss it further after she confronted him in the garden and tearfully left to go back into the house.

The shed exploded into a ball of flames a short time later. Neighbours who raced to the scene described how Ms Chubb had acted in a strange manner — unpegging washing from a clothes line and closing windows as her husband burned to death in the shed.