Teacher ‘killed partner and dumped her in a suitcase, then went to Barnsley to meet lover’

Andrew Lindo, 28, was an “inveterate and accomplished liar” who was leading a double life when he killed Marie Stewart, 30, at their home in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, prosecutors told Bradford Crown Court.

Her body was not found for another two months.

Lindo has admitted manslaughter but denies murdering her on December 18 last year.

The court heard how Lindo will claim he was forced to kill Miss Stewart to protect their young daughter because she was mistreating her.

But Michelle Colborne QC, prosecuting, told the jury there was no mistreatment.

Lindo sat in the dock with a security officer as the trial began, wearing a suit and tie.

Ms Colborne told the jury: “Marie Stewart was murdered by her partner, Andrew Lindo, on December 18 last year.

“It was the culmination of a protracted and brutal attack at the home they shared with their two children.

“He killed her, dumped her in a suitcase and travelled to Barnsley to collect his lover.

“His lover, a lady called Angela Rylance, had been invited to stay at the house.

“Miss Stewart’s body was not discovered until February 13.”

The prosecutor said: “The defendant accepts that he is responsible for killing but not murdering Marie Stewart.

“He contends that he was a faithful, loving partner, enduring protracted emotional and physical abuse over a period of years at the hands of the deceased.”

She said Lindo has also accused the deceased of mistreating their daughter.

Ms Colborne said: “He alleges that he was forced to kill her to protect their child, so overcome was he by that need and his pent up emotion that he lost his self control.

“The evidence will show that the defendant was, and is, an inveterate and accomplished liar, living a double life at the time and, moreover, setting out a defence which is untruthful and creates a wholly misleading impression of his own character and that of the deceased.”

Ms Colborne said the defendant and Ms Stewart met at Huddersfield University.

Lindo was originally from the north-east of England, she said.

The prosecutor said: “The deceased was married but fell in love with the defendant and gave up everything to be with him.”

She said she told a friend she was “the happiest she had ever been”.

The court heard how Lindo first got a job at Henry Ward School, in Brighouse, West Yorkshire, as he was studying to get a teaching certificate.

In 2008 he starting working as a music teacher at the Take Two Academy, in Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

The couple had a daughter in 2007 and a son in 2010.

Ms Colborne told the jury that Lindo told police he first strangled Miss Stewart in their bedroom, covering her eyes so she was not looking at him.

After she stopped making noises and had gone “purple and red”, he decided he had to “get her out of the way”.

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 chair but Miss Stewart came to so he put a belt round her neck and rendered her unconscious again.

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

When she began to moan again, the defendant wrapped bubblewrap round her head and decided to cut her throat, the jury was told.

“He said he grabbed a knife and jabbed it in,” said Ms Colborne.

“The defendant said he put her body in a Virgin Atlantic flight bag, put it to the back of the garage and covered it with some carpet.”

The prosecutor said: “He said he used Vanish to clean the house.”

After killing Miss Stewart, Lindo left the house and drove to Barnsley with his children to collect Angela Rylance, Ms Colborne said.

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

The prosecutor said the defendant had to explain away the stains on the stairs and the missing bedcovers.

Turning to the day after the killing, Ms Colborne said: “He spent an entirely pleasant day with Angela Rylance at the scene of the previous night’s brutality.”

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

The jury was played a phone call he made to a GP explaining how she had gone abroad, saying she had told him she was having “fun in the sun”.

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

Ms Colborn said the defendant received great sympathy from Miss Stewart’s family, who were appalled when she failed to see her children over Christmas and missed her son’s first birthday.

She said: “The defendant responded to messages sent to her phone and also sent messages from his own phone professing his love and devotion for her in order that it would appear that he was suffering the loss of her going.”

Eventually, Miss Stewart’s family and friends’ suspicions grew, the court heard, and the police were called.

When they searched Lindo’s house on February 13 this year, they found the body where he had left it in December.

The prosecutor told the court about a series of relationships Lindo had with other women while he was with Miss Stewart.

She said: “He was untruthful to the deceased, he was manipulative towards her, seeking to persuade her he loved her whilst entering into sexual relationships with a series of hapless women.”

Ms Colborne said there was no truth in the accusations he made against his partner.

She said: “He is a philanderer who has been caught out by his lies but, true to form, continues those lies before you.”

The prosecutor concluded: “When he rendered her unconscious in their bedroom, dragged her body down to the garage, in between times strangling her with his belt, beating her with a wooden chair, placing bubblewrap on her face before finally ending what you may conclude was undoubted torture for her by stabbing her in a determined knife attack, he had her death firmly in mind.”

The case was adjourned until tomorrow.