Body in bag trial, Day 2: ‘A perfect little family’

A WEST Yorkshire music teacher and his fiancee, who he strangled, battered and stabbed before storing her body in a bag, were today described in court as a “perfect little family”.

Andrew Lindo, 29, put the body of Marie Stewart - the mother of his two children - into a flight bag and put it in his garage, Bradford Crown Court was told.

It was not found for several weeks during which time Lindo allegedly used 30-year-old Miss Stewart’s Facebook profile and mobile phone to convince her family and friends she had deserted her young son and daughter and was with a new man.

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It was alleged Lindo, who admits manslaughter but denies murder, was living a double life with another woman and was planning a future with her.

Today, a friend of the couple, Hollie Carter, told the jury how Miss Stewart had been married previously, but it broke down when she had an affair with Lindo.

The jury was told Miss Stewart had been married to Martin Waldron, who was a “very good friend” of Lindo.

Mrs Carter said news of the affair had been a “shock”.

“It was an extreme shock, to myself and everybody and Marie’s family,” she told the jury.

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She told the court how Lindo and Miss Stewart moved in together but both “lost friends through the affair”.

Asked to describe the couple as they expected their first child, she told the jury: “They were extremely happy in anticipation of their first child.

“Very excited about having a baby. They just seemed a perfect couple expecting their first child together.”

Mrs Carter, a serving police officer with West Yorkshire Police, went on to describe them as a “perfect little family”.

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She described Miss Stewart, who she met at school, as a “normal and loving mum”.

She went on to detail a series of text messages she exchanged with Lindo and other family members when Miss Stewart disappeared around Christmas time last year.

Asked by Michelle Colborne QC, prosecuting, if it was strange for her friend not to be around, she replied: “I did think it was exceptionally strange.

“It was so near Christmas, just going and not telling anyone, it just didn’t seem a normal thing.”

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Mrs Carter told the jury how she received and exchanged a series of text messages from Lindo and other family members expressing their concern that she had disappeared.

In one text, from Miss Stewart’s sister, Katie, it was alleged that Lindo was having an affair.

Lindo has admitted manslaughter but denies murdering his partner on December 18 last year at their home in Holmfirth.

Yesterday, the court heard Lindo told police he first strangled Miss Stewart in their bedroom and, after she stopped making noises and had gone “purple and red”, he decided he had to “get her out of the way”.

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He told officers he wrapped her in a duvet and tried to heave her into a suitcase.

Lindo, the court heard, tried to get the case down the stairs but she was making louder and louder noises.

He then hit her with his daughter’s Winnie The Pooh chair but Miss Stewart came to so he put a belt round her neck until she was unconscious again.

The jury was told Lindo dragged her to the garage, part in and part out of the case.

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When she began to moan again, he wrapped bubblewrap round her head and stabbed her, the jury was told.

The jury was told Lindo hid the body in the garage, storing it in a Virgin Atlantic flight bag and used Vanish to clean the house.

The jury was told that, after Miss Stewart died, Lindo left the house and drove to Barnsley with his children to collect his lover, money shop worker Angela Rylance.

He arrived just after 11pm, and drove back to his house at Perseverance Place, Holmfirth.

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Over the weeks which followed, Lindo developed a story that Miss Stewart had gone missing with another man.

The court was also told he used Miss Stewart’s mobile phone to send text messages to her family and posted messages on her Facebook page “which gave the impression that she had left the country and was happier than she had been in years”.

Eventually, the police were called and when they searched Lindo’s house on February 13 this year, they found the body where he had left it in December.

The court heard Lindo and Miss Stewart met at Huddersfield University and lived at Perserverance Place in Holmfirth.

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Lindo worked at Henry Ward School, in Brighouse, West Yorkshire, and then at the Take Two Academy in Barnsley. The couple had a daughter in 2007 and a son in 2010.

The trial was adjourned until tomorrow.