A PROFESSIONAL poker player accused of killing his wife before embarking on a Las Vegas spending spree has been cleared to stand trial in the United States by London’s High Court.

Last year, the Home Office ordered Marcus Bebb-Jones’s extradition to the US to face trial on a charge of murdering his wife, Sabrina, aged 31, with whom he ran a hotel in Grand Junction, Colorado, before her disappearance 12 years ago.

He launched a legal challenge to the decision but now faces a flight across the Atlantic – and potentially the death penalty if convicted – after the High Court dismissed his appeal.

Mr Bebb-Jones, who lives in rented accommodation in Kidderminster with the couple’s teenage son, Daniel, had argued that it was wrong to send him for trial.

He signed a consent order withdrawing his appeal before the High Court hearing, but then tried to withdraw that withdrawal the same morning, only for Lord Justice Gross and Mr Justice Davis to reject his application.

In a hearing at the High Court last year, lawyers told how Mr Bebb-Jones is accused of murdering his wife on September 16, 1997.

He is said not to have reported her missing and told someone who worked at their hotel “in terms” not to report the disappearance.

He allegedly gave “different accounts to various witnesses as to his wife’s whereabouts” and, on September 17, 1997, went on a lavish spending spree in Las Vegas.

His ‘playboy’ weekend culminated in him putting a pistol in his mouth and shooting himself in the head, a previous hearing was told, although he escaped life-threatening injuries.

Mr Bebb-Jones, who denies the offence, claims he went to Las Vegas to locate his missing wife.

Her skull was eventually discovered close to a park they allegedly visited on the day of her death.