Husband accused of murdering wife ‘set her on fire’ court told

Unemployed joiner Stephen Eastwood, 55, had packed a bag during an argument with his librarian wife Angela, 56, but then went to the garage and got a bottle of white spirit.

He splashed it over her clothes and then set her alight with a cigarette lighter, prosecutor Bryan Cox QC told Sheffield Crown Court.

Mrs Eastwood, 56, suffered 15 per cent burns to her upper chest, neck and face and died in hospital four days later from the effects of the burns and inhaling fumes.

Eastwood, of Sycamore Drive, Thurcroft, Rotherham denies murdering his wife on December 31 last year. The couple had been due to go on holiday to Cuba just days later.

He was arrested on suspicion of assault and only charged with his wife’s murder in July after further forensic evidence was gathered.

Mr Cox said the couple, who married on Christmas Eve in 2001, had been under stress because Mr Eastwood was out-of-work and could be moody.

He said Mr Eastwood, who initially claimed his wife went up in flames after lighting a cigarette, deliberately used a naked flame probably from a cigarette lighter to set fire to his wife’s night clothes.

The court was told that scientific experts had shown a naked flame had to be used to set white spirit alight as a cigarette could not ignite the vapours.

Further tests on his clothing showed Mr Eastwood was facing his wife with his right arm outstretched as she went up in flames.

Mr Cox said: “His intention was to set fire to her clothes and therefore cause her serious injury if not to kill her.”

Mr Eastwood told police he argued with his wife on the way home from a family visit last Boxing Day and he slept on the sofa overnight.

The next day he took her car keys as she had been drinking and went out to a nearby shopping centre.

He returned home at teatime and the fatal injuries, said the prosecution, must have been caused soon afterwards although Mrs Eastwood took a telephone call from her sister and gave the impression she was fine.

“It is somewhat curious that she did not tell her sister about it,” said Mr Cox.

But half an hour later Mr Eastwood took his wife to Rotherham District Hospital with severe burns and she was later transferred to Sheffield’s Northern General Hospital where she died on New Year’s Eve last year.

The prosecution say it is possible the couple did not realise how serious the burns were.

Mr Eastwood told a hospital receptionist: “She’s been using white spirit then lit a cigarette.”

But Mrs Eastwood told a sister she had been “wanting to burn some clothes” and had a cigarette in her mouth at the time.

She told other nurses she had argued with her husband and it got out of hand as she tried to get the bottle of white spirit off him.

The liquid spilled over her and caught fire but she denied he had deliberately thrown the spirit at her.

But Mr Cox said her account “did not afford a credible explanation” as a lit cigarette could not have ignited the vapours.

“She may have simply been mistaken about what happened or didn’t want to get her husband in trouble or she may have been frightened,” he said.

Her husband told a doctor it was not his wife but he who was going to burn the clothes and his wife was smoking and “she just went up”. But he gave another member of staff another account of what happened saying it was “all his fault” as they had argued.

The trial continues.