As Andrew Hill is jailed for 17 years for murdering his wife's lover, a family is left picking up the pieces

FOR more than three decades, doctors Carol and Colin Shawcross led a successful and happy life together.

A close-knit family with three sons, they enjoyed travelling the world and indulging a shared passion for luxury cars.

But, after 34 years of marriage, Dr Colin Shawcross’s brief affair with a nurse was to lead to the family splitting up and, ultimately, to his untimely death.

The two doctors met in March 1974 at a student party, while both were studying medicine in Sheffield. As part of her studies, Dr Carol Shawcross spent three months of that year in Africa, and when she returned her then-boyfriend was waiting at the airport, where he proposed to her.

They married in March 1975 and, three years later, Dr Colin Shawcross took up a partnership at Firth Park surgery in Sheffield, where he stayed until his retirement in March 2008.

Their first child, James, was born in February 1979. Edward followed in June 1981 and Richard in February 1983.

Dr Carol Shawcross said: “He was extremely proud of his children and would assist in bringing up the boys.”

When their sons went to university, the Shawcrosses continued to support them, sending an allowance and buying a home in Newcastle which two of the boys lived in as students.

The family also owned a third home in Thirsk, and the couple planned to move to North Yorkshire when they retired.

Even when she discovered the affair with Julie Hill in August 2008, Dr Shawcross said that she and her husband remained close.

She said: “Although Colin moved out, he didn’t take the bulk of his possessions with him. He still had access to the family home and would come frequently, three or four times a week.”

On November 9, 2008, the pair met up for a walk at the Chesterfield canal. During that trip, Dr Colin Shawcross asked his wife if he could return home.

She said: “I told him that he would have to give up Julie Hill totally. The following Sunday he told me he and Julie were going to set up home together.”

Just a week later, however, he returned to the family home on Riverdale Road to ask if his wife would take him back.

Dr Shawcross said: “He said Julie had returned to her husband, Andrew. I raised my concerns at allowing Colin to come home .”

It was then that Dr Shawcross received a telephone call from Andrew Hill through her GP practice in Totley, Sheffield.

“He asked me if I would get Colin to speak to him,” she said. “He asked if I would take Colin back, as he then thought Julie would go back to him.

“He spoke of how he was desperate to have Julie back.”

Further telephone calls followed from Hill, and by the third call his wife had returned to him.

Dr Shawcross said: “He urged me to take Colin back. I never contacted Andrew Hill again.”

During their separation, Dr Shawcross said, she and her husband spent “a lot of time together”. The last time they met was 10 days before his death, when they went out for a meal.

That night the pair discussed a possible reconciliation, but Dr Shawcross told her husband that, if he wanted to come home, he would have to “sever all ties with Julie”.

“He said he couldn’t do this,” she said. “Under these circumstances I refused to allow him to return home. He became very distressed and started hyperventilating. In our 34 years together I’d never seen him like this.”

On the day her husband died, Dr Shawcross sent him a text, saying that he was welcome to use their home in Thirsk that weekend. That was the last contact she ever had with him.

She said: “Colin and I had a long, happy and loving marriage for 34 years. The last five months were a temporary blip.

“I’m confident, given time, we would have sorted out our marital difficulties and would have had a long and happy retirement together.

“He never took Julie Hill out socially with his friends or introduced her to our sons. This liaison was a small and short part of his life which he didn’t share with anyone.”