Woman allegedly murdered by ex-fiance at hotel ‘owed him £100,000', court told
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.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
20 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Lebanese thug who 'murdered' beauty queen has fled to Britain on a small boat... so will we EVER be able to deport him?
A Lebanese man accused of murdering his beauty queen wife fled to Britain on a small boat, the Mail can reveal. Ibrahim Ghazal, 36, allegedly suffocated model Zeina Kanjo to death in Beirut and is subject to an Interpol red notice. But he was able to spend years zig-zagging across Europe before becoming one of the record 23,000 arrivals by small boat into Britain from France this year. The alleged killer was last week jailed for nine months for attempting to arrive without a valid entry clearance. But Government officials face a potential crisis over what to do with him once his sentence has expired. Ghazal has already successfully escaped extradition from Germany and Sweden under Human Rights laws by claiming he faced execution if returned home, and it is feared he could do the same to avoid leaving Britain. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the shocking case showed the Government had no control over the migrants entering Britain. 'And we know that the illegal immigrants arriving are from nationalities 24 times more likely to end up in prison, especially for sex offences,' he added. 'Every illegal immigrant should be immediately deported upon arrival - then the crossings would soon end.' Ms Kanjo's murder in January 2021 sparked outrage in Lebanon and ignited a national debate about domestic violence issues facing women in the middle eastern nation. The 33-year-old model, who represented her country in a beauty contest in Egypt the previous year, had filed domestic violence and fraud cases against her new husband and was trying to divorce him when he allegedly killed her. Just hours after her death, Ghazal fled to Turkey and Lebanese channel Al Jadeed broadcast an audio recording in which he appeared to admit responsibility. In a conversation with Ms Zeina's sister, he allegedly said: 'I didn't want to, I didn't want her to die, when she was screaming, I just put my hand on her mouth.' Ghazal embarked on a journey across Europe, travelling through countries including Greece, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. He evaded arrest until December 2022 when he was detained in Stockholm under Interpol's red notice. Extradition was denied due to Sweden's refusal to send a suspect to a country where they may face execution, and when Ghazal was arrested again in Germany the same thing happened, according to Ms Kanjo's lawyer, Ashraf Al-Moussawi. 'The Swedish and German authorities required amendments to these laws as a condition for extradition, which wasn't feasible,' Mr Al-Moussawi said. 'But in reality, Lebanon hasn't carried out an execution since 1994, so it shouldn't have been an obstacle. 'Following the government's refusal to amend the law and the expiration of his detention in Sweden, he submitted a humanitarian asylum request, which was under review when he was released. 'He then wandered Europe until his recent arrest in England.' Mr Al-Moussawi urged the British government to find a way to send Ghazal back to Lebanon to face justice. Ms Kanjo's heartbroken father, Mohammed, said he had little faith in the Lebanese justice system, however, and claimed that while on the run Ghazal had been able to sneak back into the country to attend his cousin's wedding a year after his daughter's death. 'After all this time, I'm left wondering if justice will ever be served,' he told the Mail. 'It's like something is missing from your body, something that is not replaceable. 'I honestly hope he's not handed over to Lebanese authorities only to be imprisoned and then released again. 'Perhaps the British legal system will find a way to properly punish him.' Barrister Toby Cadman, an international criminal law specialist, said Britain may be able to extradite an individual to a country that has the death penalty if there are assurances the suspect will not face execution. 'It would be the same as when we send someone back to the US, where the death penalty still applies in some states,' he said. 'We have to receive a proper assurance that the death penalty won't be applied, and that various other conditions are met.' Ghazal was detained by the Border Force and was jailed by judge Ian Lawrie KC at Gloucester Crown Court last Wednesday after admitting entering the country unlawfully. A Government spokesman said: 'The Home Office never comments on whether extradition requests have or have not been received, and it is also our longstanding policy not to comment on individual cases. 'However, we will always do everything in our power to remove serious foreign criminals from the UK so they are not left free on our streets after completing their sentence.' Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said the case showed the Government needed to wake up to the crisis in the Channel. 'We have seen terror suspects, murderers, rapists and drug dealers saunter into the country and jeopardise the safety of the British people,' he said. 'This is nothing less than a national security emergency.
Daily Mail
20 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Forget the White Van Man stereotype. The truth, finds ROBERT HARDMAN, is that the Epping hotel protests are being led by concerned mothers
Civil disorder – or civil war? It could almost be the film set for a suburban apocalypse drama. There are police vans tailing back down leafy lanes all around Epping. Platoons of coppers in full riot garb have been massing at the station, along the Georgian high street and out in the woods since mid-morning. Units have been bussed in from Hampshire, Staffordshire, Bedfordshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Kent, in addition to the Metropolitan Police. It's the sort of presence you might expect for a grudge match between Premier League arch-rivals or a full-fat Hamas solidarity parade through central London. Instead, these reinforcements have swamped Sir Rod Stewart 's pretty former home town in semi-rural Essex to help the local force keep an eye on 150 locals standing across the road from The Bell Hotel. What is immediately apparent is that many of the protesters are women and children. Indeed, this whole protest has been organised by women. Many – if not most – of the passing motorists who honk their horns in support are also women, including one who drives back and forth eagerly beep-beeping away in her claret Land Rover Discovery (you can forget the White Van Man stereotypes in this corner of Essex). What has galvanised these residents is a near-universal demand for the closure of The Bell as an accommodation centre for migrants following a recent attack on a 14-year-old schoolgirl. A hotel guest, a 38-year-old Ethiopian man, who had arrived in Britain eight days earlier, has been charged with three sexual assaults and denies them all. Suddenly the debate on small boat migration has become incendiary. Protests here a week ago turned violent when far-Left activists were escorted in by Essex Police to stage a counter-demo. That, in turn, brought out the usual suspects on the hard-Right and things soon turned ugly. By Thursday, though, there is no prospect of trouble because there are no dissenting voices. The rent-a-mob from Stand Up To Racism – a masked offshoot of the Socialist Workers Party – have not turned up. Nor have any hard-Right saboteurs allied to the toxic Tommy Robinson. It is raining, after all. That has not deterred the true believers who have a fervent desire to see The Bell – now fenced off and looking more like a disused military base – either bulldozed or transformed back into the local wedding venue of yesteryear. And I mean everyone. That not only applies to the drenched posse marching on the local council offices, chanting 'Save Our Kids' and 'Starmer Out', but the councillors gathered in the chamber – including Sir Keir Starmer's own man. Epping Forest council only has one Labour councillor, Martin Morris. Even he joins the Tories, Reform, the Lib Dems, the solitary Green and sundry Independents in a unanimous vote to demand the immediate closure of The Bell. In fact, they all demand a lot more than that in a thumping two-page motion which also calls for the closure of another hotel-turned-migrant centre up the road. All media eyes have been on The Bell of late, but the situation is not much better at The Phoenix Hotel. That mysteriously caught fire four months ago, although asylum seekers still occupy most of it. The man charged with arson has turned out to be a guest at The Phoenix who was then generously rehoused at, you guessed it, The Bell. The same man has been charged with trying to burn that down, too. There is a thunderous standing ovation in both the gallery and the council chamber after Tory councillor Shane Yerrell reads out a message from the father of the girl subjected to the recent assault. 'I do not want or condone any of the violence that has taken place at the protest,' says the message from the unnamed dad. 'I just want the hotel to be moved, not only away from our streets, but away from making any other family feel how we're feeling right now. 'It's not fair that the Government is putting our children and grandchildren at risk. I didn't think my little girl's story would be as big as it was.' His daughter, he adds, has been greatly comforted by messages of support and a JustGiving page which has raised £3,000 for counselling. 'Eventually we will get her confidence back to the point where she is able to go out without feeling scared.' The father, it transpires, is actually in the gallery. We have now, very clearly, got beyond the point where the Government can trot out the usual mantra 'It's all the Tories' fault and we've got this migration thing under control ' and expect things to blow over. The default position of the legal establishment, the police and most of us in the media – namely that the main problem is dark online forces stirring up xenophobia – is manifestly no longer tenable. Having spent the previous week in northern France watching the people smugglers, I have spent this week looking at the other end of the equation. I have seen the protests popping up in Epping and Canary Wharf, east London (where a huge hotel has just been commandeered by the Home Office). And there are two very striking trends to this new wave of popular protest. The first is that the protagonists are being open about it. They tell me their names and stories. There is no sense of shame or fear of being branded a 'racist' any more. The second is that this is very much a unisex campaign, if not an overtly female one. One of the main architects of the peaceful protests in Epping is Orla Minihane, a mother of three teenagers and now a vocal council candidate for the Reform Party. 'I think women are naturally more tolerant – we have got to put up with men after all – but when you start to threaten our children, then we snap,' says Mrs Minihane, who is marching through the rain waving not the Cross of St George, like some of the men, but the green, white and purple flag of the Suffragette movement. She's lived in Epping since childhood, has worked for a City bank for 25 years and is married to Scott who owns a building business ('and can't stand this political stuff'). Mrs Minihane says she was appalled by last week's violence in the town and blames Essex Police for facilitating a Left-wing counter-demo which, she says, triggered all the aggro. It has prompted Reform leader Nigel Farage to call for the resignation of the chief constable. 'There was only trouble when the police caused it,' he says. For the Tories, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp says that Essex Police 'lamentably failed to keep the protesters apart'. Mrs Minihane says: 'The day after that trouble I went on our Facebook group – there's about 700 of us – and said we are never going to win if we have more protests like that. We need to change the narrative. So we ordered a batch of T-shirts saying 'We Are The Children's Voice'. And we are going to show that this problem is much worse than people think it is.' She talks of repeated incidents of women being pestered while jogging or walking their dogs and recounts the story of a friend, a mother of four girls. Her 15-year-old, she said, was chased on the local common by a man who, she says, was living at The Bell. 'She told the police, who did nothing at first,' says Mrs Minihane. 'When she went back again, they told her to be careful. They said: 'Remember what happened to those protesters after Southport.' But we're not putting up with that any more.' I later verify the story with the girl's mother. Mr Farage explains that what Mrs Minihane is doing in Epping reflects a broader trend. 'The boats issue is increasingly becoming a female issue. Mums for Reform, call it what you will, is a real thing,' he says, pointing to this month's Tory-to-Reform defections of Laura Anne Jones, a member of the Welsh Senedd, and Westminster city councillor, Laila Cunningham, along with a marked shift in the party's membership. Having been 58 per cent male and 42 per cent female at the last election, he says, it is now 50:50. It's hard to see what more the Tory-run council can do. All are as one when it comes to the failings of the Home Office, which commandeered the hotel without consulting the locals first. 'We are speaking to the Home Office on a regular basis. I have to say to you, at the present time, they have not been overly co-operative,' council leader Chris Whitbread tells the meeting. Holly Whitbread, his fellow Tory councillor (and daughter), is more forthright: 'It is my firm belief that the Government is now treating our community with contempt. Contempt for local democracy, contempt for public safety, contempt for our town which deserves better than this.' The hotel has been the trigger for plenty of other complaints, too. Hairdresser Barry Seago tells me that today alone he has had five cancellations from customers worried about trouble in the town. Locals point to the trouble they have in finding an NHS dentist – hence their fury when they saw a mobile dental unit turn up at The Bell. This week has also seen protests an hour away at Canary Wharf, where the Home Office has taken over the vast Britannia International Hotel, which has 531 bedrooms, as a new accommodation centre. I remember the days when my old newspaper used to hold (rather dreary) office parties there. It might be more Alan Partridge than The Ritz but it's not cheap. As Whitehall maintains its customary reluctance to discuss these things, rumours are rampant that migrants will be housed three to a room, suggesting a new population of 1,500 predominantly young, undocumented adult men with nothing to do. Here, I meet a small group of protesters in the rain, all native East Enders who live around here. Once again, they are happy to be identified. 'You've got working people round here using food banks – my Mum runs one – and then people are being put up here on three square meals a day and we don't know anything about who they are,' says Ben Cavanagh, 45, a scaffolder and father of three. Fellow scaffolder Matthew John-Lewis, 44, says tensions have gone off the scale. 'I'm busting my arse off to pay taxes for all this. I can barely afford the rent on a two-bedroom flat and this lot get given everything,' argues the father of four children. He adds that he does not want his children to be targeted by gangs of bored young men who 'don't understand' British culture. 'And don't anyone dare call us racist. My family were immigrants and I'm three-quarters black,' he says. The hefty police presence here and the even bigger one in Epping are an acknowledgement that we are at a very ugly tipping point. With another Stand Up To Racism protest against the residents of Epping – or 'organised Nazis' as they call them – planned for Sunday, further outbreaks of violence are no longer a question of if – but when.
Daily Mail
20 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Keir Starmer accused of failing in his mission to 'smash the gangs' as figures show only a tiny fraction of small boat migrants are prosecuted - as the Tories say the smugglers have 'never had it easier'
Keir Starmer was last night accused of failing in his mission to 'smash the gangs'. Figures show that just a tiny fraction of migrants crossing the Channel are being brought to justice. Since Labour 's leader became Prime Minister last July, only 446 people have been charged with any immigration offence, figures published by Parliament have revealed. Over the same period, a record 43,309 migrants have reached Britain after crossing the Channel in more than 700 dinghies. This comes despite Sir Keir vowing to tackle the illegal migration crisis by scrapping Rwanda deportations and focusing on tougher law enforcement instead. The number of those charged includes some offences not related to Channel crossings, so the number of small boat migrants prosecuted was even lower. There were 153 people charged between last July and this June with the key offence of 'assisting entry of illegal immigrant', which is intended to be used against those piloting each vessel, but Labour insisted the numbers have increased on their watch from 118 in the previous 12 months. Tory justice spokesman Robert Jenrick said: 'Keir Starmer boasted he would smash the gangs, but the gangs are laughing at him. They've never had it easier and crossings are up 50 per cent as a result. We're now heading towards being the illegal immigration capital of Europe. 'It's clear Starmer is incapable of stopping the boats and his backbenchers don't want him to. The country cannot go on like this. 'Those that arrive illegally from the safety of France must be swiftly deported so the message is clear: if you break into Britain, you will not get a life here.' He obtained the new figures in Parliamentary written questions after asking ministers how many gangs had been smashed since Labour came to power. In a Commons clash this month, he asked Shabana Mahmood: 'Can the Justice Secretary [Ms Mahmood] tell us how many individuals have been prosecuted for smuggling people in on small boats?' She replied: 'I do not have those figures directly to hand, but I am sure that if they are available, I can write to him with the details.' He accused her of not having 'a clue' about 'one of the biggest challenges facing our country right now' but she shot back 'had he paid any attention, he would know that prosecutions do not fall to the Ministry of Justice; they are dealt with independently through the Crown Prosecution Service'. Latest Home Office figures show another 1,387 people have reached Britain in small boats since last Thursday, taking the total for the calendar year so far to 23,891. A Labour spokesman said: 'Robert Jenrick can reinvent himself as many times as he likes, but he cannot rewrite history. 'With Labour in office, more people were charged with assisting unlawful immigration in our first year in government than in the entire time that Jenrick was in charge of the Immigration System. 'Indeed, we charged more people with that offence in our first three months than he managed in his last six. 'But much more important than Robert Jenrick's failures in the past are the ones he is making now, and we don't just mean screwing up this attempted attack story against Labour. 'If he was truly serious about prosecuting dangerous people smugglers, he would not have voted against our new law to criminalise people who endanger the lives of others in the Channel, and would instead be supporting us to take that action against those who cause women and children to suffocate and drown on overcrowded small boats.'
