Husband denies murder of man who spent wedding night with his new wife

A HUSBAND accused of battering a man to death after his new wife spent their wedding night with him, yesterday admitted hitting the victim repeatedly with a wooden oar, but denied murder.

Barry Johnson’s wife Wendy Shobrook fled the couple’s home on their wedding night after she set fire to their flat following an argument.

The court heard she spent the night with her friend George Auchterlonie and the following day contacted Mr Johnson, claiming she had been raped and Mr Auchterlonie had stolen her money.

Johnson, from Plymouth, Devon, said he went to Mr Auchterlonie’s home and was let in to the property by his wife.

The 40-year-old told Plymouth Crown Court he started shouting abuse at Mr Auchterlonie before throwing a plastic bottle and a glass tumbler at him.

He said Mr Auchterlonie, 45, tried to hit him but he moved, punched him with “full force” in the face and then kicked him in the head as he fell.

He later picked up an oar and attacked him with it, striking him over the head once and hitting him twice more on the body until it snapped.

He said: “I picked up an oar, I swung it towards him.

“His immediate reaction was to cover himself,” he said.

“I hit him, on the head.”

Mr Johnson said there was blood “everywhere” from Mr Auchterlonie’s nose and, after the oar snapped, he was only stopped from hitting him again when Shobrook, 40, intervened.

Asked by his barrister Andrew Langdon QC if he intended to kill Mr Auchterlonie or cause him serious injury, he said: “No.”

He also told the court that as the couple leftthe flat Mr Auchter-lonie was standing and holding a mobile.

Johnson and Shobrook, of Clowance Street, Plymouth, both deny a charge of murdering Mr Auchterlonie.

Shobrook has pleaded guilty to arson, being reckless as to whether the life of another would be endangered on June 9, at a property in Clowance Street, Plymouth.

The court earlier heard that Mr Auchterlonie suffered 38 separate injuries including 14 to the head and neck.

Mr Auchterlonie is believed to have died some hours after the attack and his body was not found until three days later on June 13.