Pensioner ‘shot wife dead after he was ordered to pay her £10,000’

A PENSIONER murdered his estranged wife in a drive-by shooting after being ordered to pay her £10,000 in a dispute over their finances, a court heard.

Michael Reader, 70, is accused of shooting Marion Price, 63, dead through her car window in the village of Earls Barton, Northants, last December.

A court heard that Mr Reader carried out the “cold, calculated murder” after he “bitterly resented” being told to pay his former partner £10,000 days earlier.

Mary Loram QC, prosecuting, told the jury: “It was only a few days earlier that he (Mr Reader) was due to pay her £10,000 as a final settlement of their finances, an amount he would have bitterly resented. Michael Reader was a man obsessed with money and it was a theme of his separation that he did not want to part with it.”

The pair met online in 2011 and married in 2012. Mr Reader was said to have started to keep large amounts of money in the house and had several bank accounts despite his wife being the one going to work. He coerced her into handing over thousands of pounds and would not let her go on the electoral roll or be named on their council tax account, the court heard.

The couple separated in 2017 and Mr Reader allegedly told her that he “would do anything to make sure she was left with nothing”.

The jury heard he installed a tracker on her car in the months before her death. The court also heard that codefendant Stephan Welch was charged with murder for helping his friend carry out the killing by disposing of his mobile phone and clothes in a river. The pair deny murder. The trial continues.