A MURDER trial jury has been told accused Alan Evans had an hour to “dress the scene” after he found his wife at the foot of the stairs.

Jonas Hankin, QC, prosecuting, said there had been a “trigger” which had caused the 35-year-old welder to argue with his wife and mother-of-three Louise, aged 32, at their home in Stoney Lane, Kidderminster, and knock her down the stairs.

This could have been a letter written to Louise by his lover Amanda Chadwick, telling her about the affair, or her discovery of some other evidence.

When she confronted him, he punched her at least four times, knocking her down the stairs and then smothering her, Mr Hankin told the jury in his closing speech. He said there was no other explanation for the injuries to her face.

After she died at 11.30pm on July 9 2012, Evans then had an hour to dress the scene by placing a vacuum cleaner, a skipping rope and an ironing board to back up his story she had tripped and fallen before he raised the alarm.

Mr Hankin said Evans, who worked at Droitwich firm Egbert H Taylor, was afraid his wife would leave him and take their three daughters.

“It is not a trial about an affair, though that is inherently deceitful and deceptive,” he said.

“But that is the background in their lives against which this must all be seen.”

Rudi Forston, QC, defending, said in his closing address that the prosecution case was all speculation and was not backed up by evidence.

He said Evans and Louise had been together for 18 years and were a “model couple” with no history of any disagreement.

There was doubt about the cause of the injuries to her face, he said, and medical evidence had also failed to show an exact reason for her death.

He quoted Arthur Conan Doyle in conclusion to the jury, with the author’s Sherlock Holmes saying, “It is a capital mistake to theorise before you have heard all the evidence because that is when biases come in.” 

The prosecution case, he said, was full of theories. 

Evans denies murder. The trial continues.