Father of four bank aide held over his wife's killing

 

A father of four held over the death of his wife was suffering from money troubles and the stress of a nightmare commute.

As the first picture emerged of murder victim Caroline Andrews, family sources said her husband Stuart, 54, was struggling to cope.

The IT consultant and former adviser to the Bank of England was found with serious self-inflicted injuries 24 hours after the discovery of the body of his 52-year-old wife.

Neighbours in the upmarket Kent village of Benenden said the family appeared to have a happy middle-class lifestyle, rearing chickens and baking cakes for fetes.

‘Caroline was the archetypal housewife. She was a part-time teacher at the village school and she was very popular there with the girls and the teachers and everyone else, and did all sorts of things like making cakes. Stuart said he had to get Caroline to agree to find somewhere else to live.’

The elderly father caused a problem. Stuart desperately wanted to get a mortgage but Caroline’s father brought an extra cost with carers visiting the home regularly.

‘Stuart had quite a hard life. He would travel up and down to London every day, leaving at 5am and sometimes not getting back until midnight.

‘He had a very stressful life with little sleep and they were having to move.’

The couple had been married for 31 years and had four children: Charles, 26, an organist; Henry, 23, a graduate; Polly, 19, a student; and a 14-year-old daughter. Only their youngest child still lived with them.

 

  

The four-bedroom rented property the couple moved into in 2009, after selling their home in Eynsford, Kent, for £700,000.