A man accused of murdering his ex-fiancee at a luxury hotel has claimed in court that she owed him about £100,000 at the time of her death.
Samantha Mickleburgh, from Axminster, Devon, was found dead at the Pennyhill Park Hotel in Bagshot, Surrey, on the morning of April 14 last year.
The mother of two, 54, had arranged to stay in a twin room with her ex-fiance, James Cartwright, the night before, because she “didn’t want him to feel lonely” on his birthday, a trial at Guildford Crown Court previously heard.
Cartwright called 999 at about 8.30am on April 14 claiming he had discovered the lifeless body of Ms Mickleburgh lying next to him in bed.
While giving evidence on Monday, Cartwright told the court that Ms Mickleburgh purchased a property to fix up and collected the keys in early March 2023.
They were “very close” at the time and, in April that year, he lent her £30,000 to fund the development, he told jurors.
She planned to get a mortgage once it was habitable and repay him “but (the money) ended up running out quite quickly”, he added.
She received a mortgage in July that year and they started to live together at the property, the court heard.
By that point Ms Mickleburgh owed him between £40,000 and £50,000, he said.
At the time of her death this had increased to about £100,000, he told the jury.
The defendant said he proposed to Ms Mickleburgh on a beach in autumn 2023, which was met with “an immediate and emphatic yes”.
“Everything (was) extremely amicable and friendly and loving” during the holiday, he added.
Three days after returning, he noticed a “highly sexual” WhatsApp message from her former partner on her phone home screen.
Cartwright, who wore a dark suit to his trial, told jurors: “I was deeply shocked and very upset and very hurt.”
Martin Rutherford, defending Cartwright, asked if he explained his feelings to Ms Mickleburgh during the incident on October 2.
The defendant said: “Yes, I did, it went not well – Samantha was very embarrassed that I’d seen it and read it and stormed out of the house without any sort of explanation and response, which I was even more upset about.
“She got into her car. It was clear that she was going to drive away. I pulled (the gate) to prevent the car from leaving.
“She chose to drive through the gate and onto the road, so I had to put myself in front of the car to stop her leaving, because the gate hadn’t worked.”
He told the court “I was very embarrassed by my behaviour, I had overreacted” and said he had apologised to Ms Mickleburgh.
The relationship then started to decline, he said.
At the end of October, he saw a WhatsApp message on her laptop from the same man, the court heard.
“There were a very large quantity of messages and they were highly sexually explicit between both of them – it wasn’t just one-way traffic, it was both ways,” he said.
“Again, I was absolutely devastated”, he said, adding that it had damaged his trust in her.
They continued to live with each other until February 2024 and were physically intimate during that time, he said.
He again found messages between Ms Mickleburgh and her ex-partner around two weeks before he moved out.
Cartwright told the court: “I chose a different tack and, this time, I didn’t disclose to Samantha that I had seen them. I suppose, if I’m honest, I wanted to catch her out.
“I asked her when she’d last had contact with him and she said ‘oh, towards October last year – she hadn’t heard anything from him since’.
“It was almost terminal on my part, I just couldn’t get beyond it.”
He said on February 17 2024, Ms Mickleburgh “told me that she was really struggling, she had an awful lot of things going on in her life, different pressures, with family, looking for work”.
He said he had offered to move out into a commercial space in Axminister that he had access to.
Days after moving out, he downloaded the dating app Bumble and started messaging two women.
He told jurors he was “just looking for companionship, friendship”.
He told one woman, whom he had not yet met in person, about his upcoming birthday dinner with his then fiancee who he said had been the “love of my life”.
In texts read to the court, he said: “I’m not planning it, she is. It has the feel of a final farewell.”
He told jurors that he sent this because he “was uncharacteristically pessimistic about the outcome” of the dinner.
Another message said “it could go any way… the last goodbye”.
The defendant said he had been married and divorced three times and had three adult daughters.
Cartwright, 61, of no fixed address, denies raping and murdering Ms Mickleburgh between April 12 and April 14 last year.
He also denies one count of controlling and coercive behaviour between May 1 2022 and April 14 2024.
The trial continues.
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