A debt-ridden farmer ran over his wife with a tractor to claim her £400,000 life insurance and fund a new life with his mistress, a court was told yesterday.

When Robert Wilson’s 53-year-old wife, Jane, was found dead in a barn last December it was thought to be a tragic accident. But Mr Wilson, 40, was leading a double life and either killed her under the machine or faked the accident, crushing her head to cover up the murder of a woman he no longer needed, it was claimed.

Brian Cummings, QC, for the prosecution at Carlisle Crown Court, suggested that Mr Wilson had lavished gifts on his lover, Cathy McNeil, at a time when he was £100,000 in debt.

“The defendant was leading a double life,” he told the jury. “The prosecution say that the two halves of that life were on an imminent collision course at that time. Jane Wilson died just when the defendant needed her to die.

“As for the circumstances, despite being experienced on the farm, Jane Wilson somehow contrived to fall under the front wheels of the tractor and the defendant somehow managed not to see her. His explanation of how this occurred does not tally with the physical evidence at the scene.”

The jury was told that when Mr Wilson mucked out the barn it was his wife’s task to keep any unpenned cattle away from the tractor.

At 6.15pm on Saturday December 1, Mr Wilson rang the emergency services, telling them in an anguished tone that he had been feeding his cattle and one must have knocked his wife in front of the tractor.

He asked permission to drag her out of the way for fear that the cattle would stand on her. When paramedics arrived at their farm in Kirkandrews-on-Eden, Cumbria, he screamed hysterically: “I’ve killed her. I’ve killed her.”

Mr Wilson went ahead with the funeral arrangements, specifying that she be cremated. It was only after the funeral that Sharon and Lee Kennedy, Mrs Wilson’s children from a previous marriage, raised suspicions.

During a visit to their stepfather’s home to collect presents that Mrs Wilson had bought for their grandmother, they noticed a Christmas card beside their late mother’s bed. It read: “Happy Christmas darling, with love from Cathy – xxx.” Mr Wilson, who denies murder, was arrested four months after his wife’s death.

Mr Cummings said that the farmer met Ms McNeil, a bar worker, on a holiday in Spain in October 2006. He told her that his wife had died of cancer. He later took out a loan to go on holiday to the Maldives with Ms McNeil and bought her a £22,500 car.

In December 2006 Mr Wilson took out a joint insurance policy that, Mr Cummings suggested, in effect doubled his wife’s life cover.

On the weekend after his wife died Mr Wilson went to stay with Ms McNeil in Scarborough, Mr Cummings said. When she came to stay at the farm he said that his wife had died after throwing herself under a tractor.

When interviewed by police, Mr Wilson said that he had lived for his wife. The officers then told him that they knew about his mistress. He said that his wife permitted him to have sex with other women.

Mr Cummings said: “The prosecution say that the timing and the circumstances of Jane Wilson’s death present too much of a coincidence. The defendant had been having an affair with Cathy McNeil, who did not know that he was still married. Jane Wilson, for her part, did not know that he was having an affair.”

The trial continues.

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