I described murdering my lover’s husband to turn her on during sex
But labourer accused of killing farmer tells court: It was just a fantasy... I didn’t really do anything
A LABOURER accused of murdering a wealthy farmer told a court he talked about killing him to turn on the victim’s wife before the pair made love.
Paul Cannon said sex with Angela Taylor, 53, became ‘more intense’ when he spoke of harming her estranged husband Bill.
But he insisted it was just a ‘little fantasy’ and he was not involved in the millionaire’s death.
Describing the exchanges that led up to their trysts, Cannon, 54, said: ‘I would say “I want to get rid of him”, and I knew it excited her.
‘I know she finds this stuff arousing. It excited me. The sex becomes more intense.’
Mr Taylor, 69, was last seen at his home, Harkness Hall in Gosmore, Hertfordshire, on June 3 last year. His body was found in a nearby river in February this year.
The prosecution claims Taylor and Cannon had a ‘ venomous hatred’ for her husband because he refused to agree to her request for a divorce.
Giving evidence from the witness box at St Albans Crown Court, Cannon claimed his lover felt ‘ downtrodden’ by Mr Taylor and his son, Richard, from a previous marriage.
‘When we were having sex it would be like a relief for her to let everything out and to tell me what they had done to her and God knows what,’ he said.
‘She liked me listening. It acted like a sedative. She was like a different person afterwards.’
The jury has been shown hundreds of WhatsApp messages Cannon and Taylor sent each other, in which they spoke about torturing and killing Mr Taylor and his son. In one, they talked about having sex in Mr Taylor’s blood.
Others allegedly discussed ‘getting him out of the picture’, killing him with a chainsaw, and hiring a hitman. In one exchange, Cannon joked about a violent Quentin Tarantino film, saying: ‘Just watching Kill Bill 2 lol.’ Taylor replied: ‘One would be nice.’
Asked why he had handed his phone containing the messages to police after he was arrested, Cannon said: ‘We had done nothing wrong.’ The digger driver also admitted sending a message in which he claimed to have committed two murders previously. He told the jury: ‘It was just to build myself up in front of Angela. She likes all that sort of bravado. She likes it that I put myself across to her as a nasty bit of work. Angela finds it exciting.’
He dismissed it as a ‘little fantasy’ the pair ‘got off on’, adding: ‘That’s what we talk about during our sex life.’
Cannon told the court he and Taylor first discussed killing her husband during a sexual encounter in February last year.
‘Angela and I are very sexual people, very open in our sex. Our sex can be very physical and it gradually came out,’ he said.
‘One of the things she asked me during sex was that she wanted him dead and I said, “Yeah, all right”.’ Cannon claimed he and Taylor thought the farmer had been killed by his son because Richard was ‘volatile’.
The defendant also admitted lying in a police statement, telling officers he was not having an affair with Taylor.
Explaining why yesterday, he said he thought Mr Taylor might reappear, and he didn’t want to cause his lover’s three children
‘She finds this stuff arousing’ ‘Bill was getting on my nerves’
any more distress. His barrister, Michael Magarian QC, asked him: ‘ Were you telling a lie because you were guilty of murder?’ He replied: ‘No.’
The defendants are alleged to have driven cars at Mr Taylor, shouted abuse and set his Land Rover alight in May last year. Their affair allegedly began in 2017 while Cannon lived rent-free at Harkness Hall.
Mr Taylor became ‘angry’ when he started to suspect them. His wife is said to have told police: ‘Bill was getting on my nerves. I am not denying the messages, they were just between me and Paul.’
John Price QC, prosecuting, said: ‘Is it an unfortunate coincidence that the man they hated, whose death they... planned to bring about in those messages did disappear during the time they were talking about making it happen?’
Taylor and Cannon, of Hitchin, Hertfordshire, deny murder, conspiracy to murder and arson. An alleged accomplice, Gwyn Griffiths, 60, of Folkestone in Kent, denies murder and conspiracy to murder. The trial continues.