Torture and murder claims 'fantasy'

Mar 20 2013

A man accused of murdering missing businesswoman Lynda Spence has said claims that he tortured and killed her are "total fantasy".

Philip Wade, 42, agreed that the accounts given by his two former co-accused, Paul Smith and David Parker, were "horrific" but said the suggestion he was involved is not true.

Wade is on trial at the High Court in Glasgow with 42-year-old Colin Coats. They deny taping Ms Spence to a chair and assaulting her for up to two weeks at a flat in Meadowfoot Road, West Kilbride, Ayrshire in April 2011 and murdering her.

Parker, 38, and Smith, 47, were accused of murder but were cleared after pleading guilty to a reduced charge of holding Ms Spence against her will and assaulting her.

They both gave evidence in which they said they were asked by Wade and Coats to detain her at the flat, and that the two accused men would arrive every day to inflict violence on her.

Solicitor general Lesley Thomson QC, prosecuting, asked Wade: "The account that was given by Smith and Parker, it was horrific in its detail of daily violence wasn't it Mr Wade?"

He said: "It was a horrific story yes."

Ms Thomson said: "But oddly, on hearing that horrific story, your defence counsel Gary Allan said the thing you were most shocked about from Paul Smith's evidence was that he said you had taken drugs in front of your kids?"

Wade replied: "The rest of the story is total fantasy but I would never take drugs in front of my kids."

The solicitor general said: "Whatever way you look at it, (Parker and Smith) are going to spend a long time in prison. Is that seriously your position, that their story is total fantasy?" He replied that it was.