Murdered GP's lover tells trial of hitman claims

After his arrest, Andrew Hill, 49, from Rotherham, told his wife when she visited him in prison that he had procured a telephone number for an unknown "third party" from a local pub.

He also told Julie Hill he had been saving up money to pay the hitman to scare Dr Shawcross, which he had kept in a safe in their home.

But Mrs Hill, a nurse, told Sheffield Crown Court yesterday she had never seen this money, despite accessing the safe several times, and his claims were "rubbish".

Hill, of Walseker Lane, Woodall, is charged with killing the popular and well-respected GP after his wife threatened to leave him to be with Dr Shawcross after a six-month affair.

In a statement read to the jury yesterday, the victim's estranged wife Dr Carol Shawcross said she thought her husband's affair with Mrs Hill was "a blip" and had fully expected him to return to the family home in Riverdale Road, in Sheffield.

In November, two months before he died, she said he had come to the house asking if she would take him back.

"He never really left home and came freely to and from our home," she told the court. "I'm confident, given time, we would have sorted out our marital difficulties and would have had a long and happy retirement together."

The doctor added that her husband, a "generous" and "loving" man, never took Mrs Hill out with their friends and never mentioned her to his sons.

"The liaison was small and short – part of his life which he didn't share with anyone."

The court heard that on January 23 last year, the Hills argued after Mrs Hill told her husband she was leaving him. He threw her clothes out of their home, took her car keys and she left their house with their son George, 12, to stay with neighbour Helen Elcock.

The following morning she returned home to talk to her husband and collect some personal possessions. Mrs Elcock, who was with them at the time, told the court Mr Hill asked his wife when she had last spoken to the doctor, and she was "struck" by his response.

Mrs Elcock said: "She said she hadn't been able to get in touch with him. He said 'you've been on the phone to him, that's why your battery's run low'.

"She said 'what have you done, Andrew'. He said he hadn't done anything."

Mrs Hill then went to find Dr Shawcross, concerned he hadn't arrived to meet her as promised, and discovered a large amount of blood at his rented home in Ashley Grove in Rotherham.

Mrs Hill called the police but it was not until six months later the doctor's body was found, buried in a remote location in nearby Loscar Woods.

The court heard that Mr Hill, a telecoms engineer with the firm Skanska, was used to digging and often dug holes in his line of work, to lay cables.

Dr Shawcross was found to have died from "extensive fractures to the skull, caused by repeated blows with a heavy blunt instrument" during a "lethal, violent and overwhelming attack."

He had been living at the semi-detached house in Rotherham for a matter of months, since leaving the family home in which he and his wife had raised their three grown-up sons.

Both Mr Hill and Dr Carol Shawcross had been aware of the relationship between Mrs Hill and Dr Shawcross for some months, and had spoken on the telephone about it.

The trial continues.

Letters revealed details of affair

After Andrew Hill's arrest, police found a number of unsent hand-written letters among his possessions. These letters, which revealed the details of his wife's affair with Dr Colin Shawcross, were addressed to the chief executive and the endoscopy unit of the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, where Dr Shawcross and Mrs Hill worked, to the patient complaints department of that hospital and also to the editor of a local newspaper.

In each Mr Hill threatened to take his life. One ended: "She only returned when I threatened suicide."