Executive’s wife is held over murder of daughter, 3, at home
A SCIENCE teacher who was having marriage difficulties has been arrested on suspicion of murdering her three- year- old daughter at the family home.
Claire Colebourn, who worked at a Roman Catholic school before becoming a private tutor, was led away by officers from her home in an affluent Hampshire town near the New Forest.
Her daughter Bethan was flown by air ambulance to Salisbury Hospital in a critical condition. She was pronounced dead by doctors soon after being admitted.
Mrs Colebourn, 35, was also treated by paramedics, but was not taken to hospital.
The mother of one and her husband Michael – the chief executive of a superyacht refurbishment company – had been living apart for some months, according to locals.
One neighbour said the couple were both living at the property at Christmas, but he had ‘not seen much of them since’.
He added: ‘I cannot believe what has happened. They were nice people, and they had a lovely little girl called Bethan.
‘We went there at Christmas for a few drinks. They were very nice to us. I was shocked when I saw the ambulances and police cars outside the house last night.’
‘A devastating time for everyone’
Another neighbour said: ‘There had been some talk of the couple splitting up. Michael’s car hasn’t been seen at the house for a few months so we didn’t think he was living there.’
A third described Bethan’s death as ‘quite sickening’.
He said: ‘It’s a complete tragedy – we do not know what happened, there was absolutely no indication that anything was wrong, we didn’t know of any issues. It’s just thoroughly sad, our sympathies go to the family.’
Police were called to the £400,000 bungalow in Fordingbridge just before 7pm on Thursday because of ‘ concern for [the] welfare’ of Bethan and her mother.
Mr Colebourn, the chief executive officer of Trimline, a respected marine interiors firm based in Southampton, was not thought to have been in the property at the time.
Last night his sister Lindsay Aubrey, 35, said from her semidetached home in Gillingham, Dorset: ‘It is obviously a devastating time for everyone.
‘Michael is devastated and is on his way to the family home. It’s such a tragic event.’
Mr Colebourn graduated from the University of Southampton with an accounting and finance degree in 2003 and joined Trimline in July 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile. He is a keen sportsman who plays golf, football, tennis and competes in triathlons.
He married Claire in 2011 and the couple had Bethan three years later. Mrs Colebourn, a keen run- ner, was a science teacher at Oaklands Catholic School in Waterlooville in Hampshire before she became a private tutor.
On an internet forum called Rate My Teacher, one former student wrote: ‘I think [she] is a fabulous science teacher. She is the best teacher we have had. I wish she was not leaving.’
A woman who attended a group for new mothers with Mrs Colebourn described the teacher as ‘a lovely woman’.
The mother added: ‘I started going just before her little girl left, so I didn’t know her that well,’ she said. ‘But I ride my bike past their house a lot and if I ever see her she always says hello.’
A dog walker, who trained the family’s spaniel, added: ‘They have a dog and it was vicious. But they weren’t a bad family. People in Fordingbridge certainly didn’t talk about them as bad people.
‘I saw the mother, Claire, and the little girl out recently and they looked happy and I said hello. I would see the little girl out playing in the summer. She used to be out in their garden in a paddling pool.’
Fordingbridge mayor Malcolm Connolly described Bethan’s murder as ‘truly awful’ and a ‘tragedy of gigantic proportion’.
He said: ‘My heartfelt condolences are with everyone concerned. Things like this don’t happen here – this is a lovely, friendly small market town where everyone knows each other and we are all feeling the same sadness and loss.’