Killed for wanting to start a new life
When Heather Arthur, 50, fell in love with another man, she finally had the courage to leave her controlling husband Mark. But he wasn’t prepared to let her go
Mark Arthur was studying at Kingston University in Surrey when he met fellow first-year student Heather in the 1980s. Described by friends as “sunshine in human form”, Heather was beautiful, kind and full of life. Mark, on the other hand, was quiet and an introvert. He was the complete opposite of Heather, however their relationship appeared to work, and after graduating from university, the couple moved to nearby Surbiton.
Mark worked in IT, and Heather got a good job at the reservation department at British Airways. But her true passion was performing, and in her spare time, she attended acting classes at The Questors Theatre in Ealing. Fellow actors were in awe of Heather’s talent, yet they noticed Mark was less than friendly at the aftershow parties. He seemed possessive of Heather, but she insisted their relationship was fine.
In 2003, the couple flew to Canada for a holiday, and Mark proposed at Niagara Falls. They married the following year and went on to have two children. Then, in 2009, they moved to Gosforth,
Newcastle-upon-tyne, after Mark inherited his uncle’s house there.
Away from her family and friends down south, Heather felt isolated and increasingly dependent on her husband. When Heather’s father visited her, he was shocked by the dilapidated conditions of the house. It was in desperate need of renovation, so he wrote Heather a cheque for £20,000. But the work never got done. Instead, Mark used the money to fund his IT business that he was struggling to get off the ground. Mark would spend most of his day in front of his computer while Heather cared for their children. By 2013, she was juggling motherhood and working as a teaching assistant. She was also a singer in a jazz band and started to make new friends.
But what Heather didn’t know was that Mark was following her every move. Using his IT skills, Mark had secretly fitted GPS tracking software on Heather’s phone, so he knew where she was at all times. Heather had nothing to hide, but when she discovered what Mark had been up to, she realised that this breach of trust was a step too far. Mark tried to convince Heather that he’d installed the GPS for her own safety, but Heather had had enough. The couple did go to counselling, and at those sessions, she revealed that her husband was controlling and manipulative, saying he’d harm himself if she didn’t do what he wanted. On one occasion during a row, he banged his head on their car, making himself bleed and denting the vehicle. He had also threatened to throw himself under a bus.
What finally gave Heather the courage to leave was her fellow bandmate, saxophonist Paul. Initially, they were just good
‘You have to be careful’
friends, but after a jazz event on 13 April 2013, their relationship became romantic. Heather realised she was in love with Paul and told him all about Mark’s behaviour and that she felt she was “walking on eggshells”. She explained about the secret GPS and how Mark would use selfharm to emotionally blackmail her. Paul was worried that Heather was in physical danger, but she didn’t believe Mark was capable of violence. Over the next two weeks, she and Paul secretly planned a future together, and she told Mark that she no longer wanted to stay married to him. In a bid to win her back, Mark suggested they take day trip as a family. To spare his feelings, Heather agreed, and when she texted Paul about their plans, he replied, “Please watch his every move, honey. You have to be careful.” She replied, “I promise I will keep in view of others.”
The day out on 27 April seemed to go well, and in another text to Paul, Heather said, “Mark tried to play happy families.
He is just torturing himself, and it’s all for nothing. We will have to go through his fury
again. I will stand firm, my love, for you.” Heather told Mark that despite the fact they’d had a nice day, she had not changed her mind. Then he dropped a bombshell, telling her he thought he had cancer. Worried about him, Heather agreed to accompany Mark to the GP on 29 April. On the morning of the appointment, Heather did the school run and returned home. But she and Mark started to argue before they went to the doctor’s – and Heather, 50, told Mark she was leaving him for another man. Suddenly, grabbing a kitchen knife, Mark plunged it straight into his wife’s heart. He then ran to the GP surgery wearing only boxer shorts and a top. Bursting in on his doctor, covered in blood, he said he’d hurt his wife.
When officers arrived at the couple’s home, they found Heather lying dead in a pool of blood in the study, next to her husband’s desk. She had a knife sticking out of her chest. After Mark was arrested, he told police it had been a tragic accident, but as detectives delved into his marriage to Heather, they uncovered his decades of abuse and that Heather was planning to leave Mark for Paul.
At Mark Arthur’s trial at Newcastle Crown Court in autumn 2013, he denied murder, but admitted manslaughter. He used the stress of his cancer appointment as part of his defence – although it was never confirmed if he actually had cancer. He said that on the morning of the murder, his wife Heather began to say “preposterous” things about him, and when she said she was having an affair, his blood pressure rose and he could hear his own heart racing. His lawyers argued “loss of control” and that he had no recollection of inflicting the fatal wound on Heather. But the prosecution exposed him as a controlling and abusive partner, who intentionally murdered his wife when she revealed she was leaving him for another man.
In February 2014, the jury found Mark Arthur guilty of murder. Sentencing him to a minimum of 18 years, Judge Paul Sloan QC said, “I’m in no doubt that your intention was to kill. The knife was sharp and you plunged it straight into [Heather’s] heart.” The judge added, “Having watched you through the trial, you have not shown any genuine remorse for your treatment of Heather, nor for causing her death.”
Giving his victim impact statement in person, Heather’s father Alan Naylor, 80, said, “She was a proud and loving mother of her children, who have now lost both a mother and a father. Their whole world has been turned completely upside down. She was, and still is to us, a good girl in every sense of the word.”
‘She was a loving mother’
● Meet, Marry, Murder airs on Crime+investigation on 12 July at 8pm and is available on catch up