Postmistress murder: Echoes from the past and another fake robbery

In 1994, Gordon Wardell claimed he came home from the pub to find his building society manager wife Carol being held at knifepoint by a man in a clown mask.

Wardell said he was knocked out, and that his wife must have been taken away and forced to open the branch of the Woolwich Building Society in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, where she worked.

The 38-year-old was found asphyxiated in a lay-by.

By Wardell’s account, the raiders must have got away with around £15,000.

Police found him bound and gagged at the couple’s home in Meriden, Warwickshire.

Wardell, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses, made an emotional appeal for help at a packed press conference.

Her employers put up a £25,000 reward and his father Frank said: “I do not know how Gordon will get over this. It has destroyed his life.”

But the next month Wardell was arrested and his story fell apart.

Like Garbutt, he maintained his story was true throughout a trial.

Like Garbutt, the jury rejected it as a pack of lies.

The judge at Oxford Crown Court jailed the car parts executive for life and said he had gone to elaborate lengths, including tying himself up and inflicting injuries, to make it appear as if the couple were the victim of robbers.

Unlike Wardell, Garbutt did not appear before the cameras and journalists to plea for help in catching the raider he claimed were responsible for killing his wife.

When an officer investigating the Melsonby case was asked by a reporter if Garbutt would be made available for questions, his only response was to return a withering look.