Man ran over wife with car after Brexit row, court told
Former councillor ‘who loved his Mercedes more than his partner’ says she was crushed by accident
A FORMER Conservative councillor accused of crushing his wife to death with the family Mercedes in southwestern France had “just had a row over Brexit” before the fatal incident, a court has heard.
David Turtle was charged with aggravated manslaughter in April 2017 for crushing his wife, Stephanie, outside their home with his £37,000 Mercedes E-class, a two-ton car that she had jokingly complained in her blog received more affection than she did.
Police said one theory was that she lay down to prevent him driving away after a marital dispute but that he drove into her regardless. A second was that she received a blow to the head during the row and was placed unconscious in front of the Mercedes.
He denies the accusations, insisting her death was an accident. He argued he didn’t know she had been hit because it was dark and the suspension in the car was so good that he did not feel a thing.
Mr Turtle, 67, quit his job as a Mercedes dealer and resigned as a Conservative councillor in Bournemouth’s Kinson North ward in 2016. His wife left the human resources department of Dorset council and the pair moved to Prayssac to run a bed and breakfast. But gendarmes were called to La Maison Cèdre at about 2am on March 30 2017 to deal with a “domestic accident”.
A post mortem examination found Mrs Turtle’s ribcage had been crushed, she had sustained massive internal injuries and had been suffocated by the weight of the car. She was 50 at the time of her death.
According to the indictment read out in court on Wednesday, Mr Turtle said that after dinner on the night of her death the pair had rowed over which television programme to watch.
He “wanted to follow a programme on Brexit, which wasn’t to his wife’s taste”, according to the indictment relayed by local news website actu Lot.
Returning to the issue yesterday, Mr Turtle said that after the Brexit programme, the row started properly over his next choice, Top Chef.
His wife went to bed, he told the court, but the row resumed when she came down at around midnight and he decided to go for a drive to avoid further confrontation. He said he heard her follow him at one point, started up the engine, got out of the car and, seeing no sign of her, got back in and drove “for a few metres”, only to change his mind because he “didn’t want to move”. He said he had no idea he had hit his wife until he opened the car door and saw her trapped under the vehicle.
A forensic report confirmed Mrs Turtle had been standing in front of the Mercedes when she was run over, with experts suggesting the car had accelerated quickly. Her husband had “significantly engaged the accelerator pedal”, the report concluded. Tyre marks in the gravel confirmed the vehicle had set off at considerable speed.
“He cannot answer the question why he did not see or hear his wife and has never been able to answer it,” the indictment said. However, in court, the coroner insisted the car’s tyres did not run over Mrs Turtle, and experts disagreed on where she was positioned.
Mr Turtle told the judge that when he saw his wife trapped he instantly put the keys back in the ignition to activate the Mercedes’ hydraulic suspension in the hope this would free Mrs Turtle, to no avail. When further attempts to move the car failed, he phoned the police.
Laurent Bruneau, Mr Turtle’s lawyer, said: “David Turtle has repeatedly said it was an accident... He had no intention of killing his wife and no motive.”
However, Major Alain Chauvin, a former police officer who headed the investigation before his retirement, told the court that none of the witnesses questioned in connection with the death believed it was accidental. He said Mr Turtle’s wife could not have got in front of the car without him seeing her.
The trial continues.