‘Rage made man kill his wife with a vacuum pipe’
A HUSBAND killed his wife in a “fit of rage” when she told him their marriage was over, a court heard.
Stephen Hotson, 45, hit wife Julia Tottle repeatedly around the head with a vacuum cleaner pipe when she asked him to leave their marital home.
When 51-year-old Ms Tottle’s bloodstained body was discovered by her brother days later Hotson tried to blow up the house.
After being thwarted by his brother-in-law Hotson then tried to kill himself by jumping from a first-floor window, Bristol Crown Court was told.
Hotson denies murder but admits killing his wife, who was known as Julie, claiming he was depressed and suffering from an “abnormality of mind”.
The court heard that colleagues of Ms Tottle at a veterinary surgery in Weston-super-mare became suspicious when the normally reliable administrator did not show for work.
They alerted her brother who broke into the home, discovering her body in the lounge and Hotson slumped over a table.
He could smell gas and turned off the cooker and dialled 999, but Hotson lit a match and tried igniting a nearby oilcan.
Having failed then ran upstairs and jumped from a window knocking himself out.
Hotson told police: “When she told me to leave it just tipped me over the edge. I just lost control after she told me to leave.”
The trial continues.