Murder trial has 'many of the trappings of a novel'

A man murdered his wealthy wife in Zimbabwe and then passed her death off as suicide in an elaborate plot with “many of the trappings of a novel”, a court heard today.

Michael Bamford, aged 51, of Littleborough, Greater Manchester, is accused of shooting his wife, Ivy Sutcliffe, aged 61, in the head at their luxury home in Harare in 2004. He denies the murder charge.

Manchester Crown Court heard that, hours after Mrs Sutcliffe’s death, Bamford blamed local robbers for murdering her, before telling police his wife had committed suicide.

The prosecutor, Alistair Webster, QC, told the jury: “The case you are going to try has many of the trappings of a novel: an expatriate lifestyle in Africa; a woman with money killed by a single shot to the head by a small pistol; an exotic location.

“But the facts of the case which you are to try do not come out of a novel.

“This is real life, and sadly, real death. A story of a woman murdered by her husband of four months, and the murder being staged to look like suicide.

“Here was a real victim and a real tragedy.”