I didn’t kill her, I never stopped loving her, says fiance of author
THE fiancé accused of murdering writer Helen Bailey wept yesterday as he told a court that he ‘never stopped loving her’.
Ian Stewart said he fell in love with the children’s author after meeting her through a bereavement website.
The 56-year-old broke down in the witness box as he described how they ‘fell into each other’s arms’.
Asked by his barrister Simon Russell Flint QC if he murdered Miss Bailey, he replied: ‘No way.’
Stewart is accused of plying his fiancée with sedatives for a month before smothering her and hiding her body in a cesspit at their £1.5million home so he could inherit her £4million fortune.
At the start of his defence at St Albans Crown Court, he denied all charges against him. Stewart, in a white chequered shirt and light blue jeans, claimed he had no idea what had happened to the 51-year- old author until police found her body in the cesspit on July 15 last year.
The computer software engineer also denied fraudulently accessing her bank account hours after her death to increase a monthly standing order into their shared account from £600 to £4,000.
Stewart, a father of two whose wife Diane died in 2010, first contacted Miss Bailey via a bereavement Facebook group.
He offered her comfort and support after her husband John Sinfield drowned in the sea during a holiday in Barbados in 2011.
The pair started to send each other regular emails, which became flirty on an evening they subsequently called ‘ freaky Friday’. Weeks later, he drove to her house in London unannounced one evening with a bottle of whiskey and a box of chocolates. Miss Bailey answered the door in her pyjamas and they ‘fell into each other’s arms’.
‘That night we referred to as “fruitcase Friday” because I was a nutter for driving up there and she was a nutter for letting an unknown man into her house for the night,’ Stewart said. Their first romantic date was a visit to the National Portrait Gallery in London, followed by lunch and a film.
But Miss Bailey had to leave as memories of places she had visited with her late husband made her tearful. The pair continued to become close in the following weeks and Stewart said they ‘totally clicked and worked as a couple’.
He told the jury: ‘I had fallen in love with her quite quickly but she warned me once to never say the L word, but then I went to hug her and I said it and she replied instantly “I love you too”. I said, “I wasn’t supposed to say that, was I?” and she said, “No, but it’s true – and I love you too”. I never stopped loving her.’
Asked about the differences between himself and her late husband, Stewart said: ‘It became apparent over time [John Sinfield] and myself were totally different people. He was very sophisticated, smooth and suave, and I’m not. It wasn’t a problem for me and it wasn’t a problem for Helen. Helen was totally different from Diane, my first wife.’
During his evidence, Stewart repeatedly referred to Miss Bailey in the present tense and his voice wavered with emotion. The former Cambridge University student said the author – who wrote the Electra Brown and Daisy Davenport novels for young teenagers – told him to read her books if he wanted to know more about her.
‘I can say this now – she was the character... Electra Brown was Helen,’ he said. ‘Effectively they were autobiographical books. The names and faces changed but it was Helen.’
Stewart reported her missing to police four days after he allegedly dumped her and her dachshund Boris in a cesspit in the garage of their home in Royston, Hertfordshire.
He was arrested on suspicion of murder three months later. Police found the bodies of Miss Bailey and Boris after a five- day search. Stewart denies murder, perverting the course of justice, preventing a lawful burial and fraud. The trial continues.
‘We clicked as a couple’