A COLERAINE murder trial has heard the defendant admit to her police interrogators that she was involved in the plan by her former lover to murder their spouses so they could be together.
Hazel Stewart (47) broke down in the dock yesterday as she heard recordings of the final interviews she gave to the police two years ago following her arrest. All her interview tapes have now been played to the court and the jury of three women and nine men.
Colin Howell, the dentist who confessed to the murders, is serving a 21-year sentence for the murders of his wife, Lesley, and Ms Stewart’s husband, RUC officer Trevor Buchanan. He poisoned both with car exhaust fumes and made their deaths appear the result of a suicide pact.
The police questioners are heard to say on the recordings that the plan, which Howell claims involved Ms Stewart, was “nearly the perfect murder”.
She held her head in her hands and cried as the emotional confession to detectives was played to a packed Coleraine Crown Court on the 11th day of her trial.
Following a series of denials over the course of two days of intensive interrogation after her arrest early in 2009, the mother of two and former Sunday school teacher finally acknowledged her involvement in the murder plan.
Ms Stewart’s children Lisa, who also wept, and Andrew and her second husband David sat in the public gallery, feet away from her in the dock, as the dramatic conclusion of her final interview was played to the jury.
Det Sgt Geoff Ferris was heard to put it to her: “Colin Howell could not have done this on his own and you could not have done it on your own, Hazel: this had to be a joint enterprise between the two of you. The two of you had to work together to make this plan come to fruition. Do you accept that?”
She replied: “Yes.” The officer added: “Sorry, just for the benefit of the tape.” She repeated her answer: “Yes, yes.”
When asked if she wanted to add anything at the conclusion of questioning, Ms Stewart was heard to say: “I would like to say sorry to Trevor’s family. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a son. I’ve a son and I love him very much. To David, my husband, I love so much, Lisa and Andrew, they’re my life and I have lost it, I’ve lost it. The biggest mistake of my life was ever meeting Colin Howell and I have paid the price for the past 17, 18 years.
“Since that happened I lost so much of my life; I lost, like, a joy, a peace, contentment. It was like having a black hole every day I got up. Every night I went to bed it was there. I thought about it 24/7. It never ever left me.”
She added: “He [Howell] is a very cold, calculating person; he had his own motives for this, I had no motive, I had no motive, for he wanted me more than I wanted him.”
Ms Stewart’s statement to police was made days after Howell confessed to elders in his church.