HE'S A KILLER, BUT SHE'S STANDING BY HIM...

But, in an exclusive statement to the Evening News, his wife Iris said she is still standing by him.

Crittenden, of Beech Avenue, Barbourne, Worcester, was found guilty of smothering 71-year-old Joan Beddeson with a pillow at her Macclesfield home in November 2002 following a seven-week trial which ended at Chester Crown Court yesterday.

Crittenden, a married father-of three, was also found guilty of stealing £279,000 of Miss Beddeson's cash.

The jury of seven men and five women heard how Miss Beddeson and Crittenden quickly struck up an intimate relationship.

However, unknown to Miss Beddeson, Crittenden was also having an affair with Gwyneth Griffiths, another rich spinster who lived in Pershore.

Both women were so overawed by him, they had named him as sole beneficiary in their wills.

The women also handed over substantial amounts of cash believing he was investing it for them, but he frittered it away.

With mounting debts, the prosecution claimed Crittenden hatched a plot to murder Miss Beddeson and inherit her money.

At the time of the killing on Friday, November 15, 2002, Crittenden said he was in bed with his wife, Iris.

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However, an automatic number plate recognition camera took pictures of his car travelling north on the M5 at 12.40am and returning some three hours later travelling south on the M6.

Detectives had also found a fuel receipt for petrol he bought at the Blackpole service station, Worcester, that night at 12.20am.

Crittenden admitted buying the fuel, but said he went straight home afterwards. He denied murder and theft.

Jailing him for life, Judge Elgan Edwards said: "You murdered Joan Beddeson in a coldly calculating way, having stolen a large amount of money.

"You showed her no mercy and have showed no remorse. She was a vulnerable, elderly lady who was murdered in her bed at night by you.

"I take into account your previous good character and everything else I have learnt about you. I also had to take into account the cold, calculating decision to kill. I sentence you to 18 years.

Why I will stand by my man

THE wife of Peter Crittenden - who was yesterday given a life sentence for murdering a client for her money - is standing by her man.

In an exclusive statement to the Evening News, Iris Crittenden spoke of the stress her family has suffered since Crittenden's arrest last year, and the support she and the couple's three children James, Elizabeth, and Richard - all in their 30s - have received from friends.

During the trial she learnt that her husband admitted his affairs with 71-year-old Chester spinster Joan Beddeson and Gwyneth Griffiths, who was in her 60s.

She learnt about the Viagra packed in the bottom of his attach case, and how, on the night of Miss Beddeson's murder, when Crittenden claimed he had been in bed with his wife in Worcester, his car had been captured on camera travelling along the M5.

Nevertheless, Mrs Crittenden insisted: "I will continue to stand by Peter."

Mrs Crittenden, who lives in the couple's large detached Barbourne house, also criticised the lengthy judicial system.

"The last 15 months have been a time of immense stress for our family and friends and the time taken has been a travesty of justice," she said.

"Of course, some of the reasons for the length of time this case has taken to be heard in court are understandable in that there are some fairly complex matters involved.

"However, how can it be considered acceptable in a modern society for an accused person to wait over a year for his opportunity to express his innocence?

"Peter Crittenden was arrested in March of last year and charged in June.

"Only in May of this year did the case eventually come to Crown Court.

"In the eyes of any right-thinking person this cannot be considered acceptable. He has effectively spent over a year in jail while still an innocent man.

"To have imprisoned a man with no previous criminal record for over a year - especially after it took the police a total of seven months to garner enough evidence to take it to court - seems a total waste of public resources and at a time when we are constantly hearing about a jail occupancy crisis.

"It has been a very steep learning curve for two OAPs and has brought us into contact with parts of society we had never expected to join.

"Neither myself nor Peter Crittenden have ever had any connections with the criminal courts in our lives and it is only through the strength and the support of family and friends that we have reached this far without losing our sanity.

"I was horrified that there is so little organised support for families after a charge has been made, especially as you are in a state of utter disbelief and shock.

"Basically, you are left to deal with it yourself and make do as best you can.

"Can this really be right in today's society?

"Trying to deal with officialdom who treat you as an irrelevance, needing to learn a new language and rule book, and all the time continuing to live life as normally as possible, has been a real challenge.

"We could not have met that challenge without a lot of support which has been given voluntarily by so many.

"Thankfully, this has always existed, and we have been able to tap into it and it has helped us as a family through some incredibly difficult times.

"I am giving this statement in order to clarify some serious concerns which I feel should be highlighted and will continue to stand by Peter.

"We, as a family, have been truly thankful for all the support we have received.

The women Crittenden duped: All in tomorrow's Evening News.

He wooed for cash then killed his victim

HOLDING a menu in his hand, onlookers would have been forgiven for thinking the only thing on the father-of-three's mind was lunch.

And indeed, as the steak and stout arrived at the The Three Pears pub, Worcester, where Peter Crittenden had met up with a colleague, the last thing passers-by would have thought was that they were witnessing a murderer shoring up his alibi.

But having hatched a sinister plot to fund his lavish lifestyle, that's exactly what the 64-year-old, apparently jovial financial adviser, of Beech Avenue, Barbourne, Worcester, was doing.

Just hours earlier, on Friday, November 15, 2002, he had driven up the motorway and, in the dead of night, crept up to a neat bungalow in Rayleigh Close, Macclesfield, home to 71-year-old spinster Joan Beddeson.

He may even have smiled as he silently slid open the patio door, congratulating himself on unlocking it earlier that week when he visited Miss Beddeson, with whom he had been having an affair.

It was then, the prosecution claimed, that he picked up a pillow and smothered her.

But the pensioner didn't die without a fight. Nurse Catherine Dawson told the jury at the Chester Crown Court trial how, accompanied by police, they had found the pensioner's body.

"I saw her legs first, with blood on the pillow. Her hands were tightly closed like a fist. She looked angry. Her face was screwed up," Ms Dawson told the court.

"Her nose was squashed to one side where the pillow was. It looked like she had been struggling. It looked as though she was trying to get out of bed because her feet were on the floor."

Crittenden, who was born in Uganda, was angry that Miss Beddeson, having handed over £279,000, had asked for her money back and wanted to end the affair. He had spent it. He told her he was investing the money, but in reality, he frittered it away on himself, loans to friends and high-risk business ventures.

The two first met when, scanning The Times, Miss Beddeson spotted an advert for a financial adviser.

The advert was placed by Young Ridgeway and Associates, who paid Crittenden on a commission basis, from which he earned around £70,000 a year.

His bosses knew nothing of the scam and did not even know he was acting for Miss Beddeson, whose net worth was around £500,000.

The former Inland Revenue tax inspector had inherited some money and wanted to make the most of her cash. It was to be her date with death.

During the seven-week trial, prosecuting barrister, Lord Alex Carlile QC, had compared Crittenden to the Coronation Street villain, Richard Hillman.

The nation was hooked as the soap's serial killer - a financial adviser - fleeced his elderly clients then bumped them off to inherit their money.

But unlike actor Brian Capron who played Hillman, Crittenden had to cover his tracks.

He operated in his own parallel universe. At home was his wife Iris, a community stalwart and mother to his three children - James, Elizabeth and Richard.

By the time he targeted Miss Beddeson, the ageing Lothario was a master at wooing and winning vulnerable elderly women. He had run up huge debts and needed a way to fund his lavish lifestyle.

In 1990, he met Gwyneth Griffiths, a spinster from Wales, who had inherited some money and contacted him for advice.

The two began having an affair, and so firm was his grip over her that Crittenden persuaded her to move to Pershore - to be nearer to him.

Over time, she handed over £130,000, much of which was lost in speculative investments.

Lord Carlile said: "The affair continued until his arrest - an affair conducted during his afternoon visits to her home and, from time to time, in hotels," he said.

Crittenden carried Viagra in his briefcase, which he admitted using to enable him to have sex with Miss Beddeson, his wife and Miss Griffths.

He said he kept the drug alongside papers and documents in a brown briefcase he called his "travelling toolbox".

Lord Carlile produced medical records proving he was first prescribed the drug in January, 2001, just days after his affair with Miss Beddeson began.

He said: "It was a cynical desire on your part, that you could achieve almost as much with Joan Beddeson as you had, financially, with Gwyneth Griffiths. But you didn't fancy Joan Beddeson, so you needed to take Viagra to give yourself a bit of sexual vigour."

Crittenden denied the claim and repeated that he loved Miss Beddeson.

Lord Carlile described Crittenden as having a "calculating and even diabolical mind".

He had told Miss Beddeson - who was recovering from a bowel cancer operation - that he had had cancer to gain her sympathy and was even accused of forging her signature on a loan deal.

He claims he went to stay the night with her on Tuesday, November 12, 2002, and they went out for a meal before adding: "She was fine - full of life, as it were."

He said they went to bed and had sex before going to sleep then left the next morning. It was then he unlocked the patio door.

Crittenden claimed the money he had received from Miss Beddeson had been a cash gift.

He said: "Joan wanted me to have the money. She didn't want to be bothered with the paperwork that was attached to conventional investments.

"She was quite clear that money was going to be a gift. She said 'Peter, you have the money. Treat it as your own'."

After Miss Beddeson's body was found, it was taken to a hospital in Macclesfield where a post-mortem examination proved inconclusive.

It was not until a third post-mortem examination was carried out by a Home Office pathologist, that a murder inquiry was launched.

Just days after Miss Beddeson died, greedy Crittenden put himself firmly in the frame by ringing Macclesfield police station to ask about her will.

Det Sgt Justin Thomas said that Crittenden produced a will dated February 13, 2001, stating that he was the sole beneficiary of Miss Beddeson's estate.

While searching Miss Beddeson's home, detectives had also found a decreasing life insurance policy, naming Crittenden as the sole beneficiary. The longer she lived, the less money would be paid out.

At first, Crittenden was arrested on suspicion of theft and released.

On the night of the murder, an automatic number plate recognition camera had snapped his Toyota Avensis car - paid for with Miss Beddeson's money - travelling up the M5 at about 12.40am and returning three hours later on the M6.

Crittenden claimed to have been at home asleep in bed with Iris, his wife of 41 years, despite police showing him his credit card receipt for petrol he bought at the Blackpole service station on the night of the killing.

Detectives, scouring Miss Beddeson's home for clues, found a letter she had written to her lover telling him she wanted to end the relationship because she was fed up of the deceit and asking him to wind up her money.

It was the catalyst for murder. Miss Griffiths survived, explained Lord Carlile, because she did not ask for her money back.