Latest news with #JamesCartwright
Daily Mail
7 days ago
- Daily Mail
Woman 'raped and murdered by her ex–fiancé at a luxury five–star hotel owed him £100,000', court hears
A man accused of murdering his ex–fiancée at a luxury five–star hotel told jurors she owed him around £100,000 at the time of her death, a court has heard. Samantha Mickleburgh, 54, was found dead in a twin room at the exclusive Pennyhill Park Hotel in Bagshot, Surrey, on the morning of April 14 last year. The mother–of–two, from Axminster, Devon, had spent the night at the hotel with her ex–fiancé, James Cartwright, because she 'didn't want him to feel lonely' on his birthday, Guildford Crown Court was told. Cartwright, 61, made a 999 call at around 8:30am claiming he woke to find Ms Mickleburgh lifeless beside him in bed. Wearing a dark suit, Cartwright took to the witness stand on Monday and claimed that Ms Mickleburgh had borrowed tens of thousands of pounds from him as part of a property development project – and by the time she died, the debt had ballooned to a six figure sum. He told the court: 'She purchased a property to fix up and collected the keys in early March 2023.' He added they were 'very close' at the time and that he lent her £30,000 in April to help fund the renovation. 'She planned to get a mortgage once it was habitable and repay him 'but (the money) ended up running out quite quickly,' the court heard. By July, she had secured the mortgage and they began living together in the house. At that point, Cartwright said she owed him between £40,000 and £50,000. That figure had risen to 'about £100,000' by the time of her death, he claimed. Cartwright also told jurors that he had proposed to Ms Mickleburgh during a romantic getaway in the autumn of 2023 – a proposal that was met with what he described as 'an immediate and emphatic yes'. 'Everything (was) extremely amicable and friendly and loving' during the trip, he added. But just days after returning home, he claimed their relationship took a turn when he spotted a 'highly sexual' WhatsApp message on her phone from a former partner. 'I was deeply shocked and very upset and very hurt,' he said. His barrister, Martin Rutherford KC, asked whether he had spoken to Ms Mickleburgh about what he saw. The defendant replied: '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 admitted to jurors: 'I was very embarrassed by my behaviour, I had overreacted,' adding that he later apologised. From that point, the relationship began to deteriorate. Later in October, Cartwright claimed he discovered another string of messages — again sexually explicit — between Ms Mickleburgh and the same man, this time on her laptop. '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 added, telling jurors that it destroyed his trust in her. Despite the tensions, they continued living together until February this year and remained physically intimate, the court heard. Then, around two weeks before he moved out, Cartwright said he again saw messages between Ms Mickleburgh and her ex. But this time, he stayed silent: '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.' Cartwright said that on February 17, Ms Mickleburgh confided in him that she was 'really struggling' with various pressures in her life — from family to job hunting. He told the court he offered to move out to a commercial property he had access to in Axminster. After moving out, he downloaded dating app Bumble and began messaging two women. 'I was just looking for companionship, friendship,' he said. In texts read to the court, Cartwright told one of the women - who he had not yet met - about an upcoming birthday dinner with Ms Mickleburgh, who he described as the 'love of my life'. He wrote: 'I'm not planning it, she is. It has the feel of a final farewell.' Another message said: 'It could go any way… the last goodbye.' Cartwright told jurors he had been married and divorced three times and has three adult daughters. He denies raping and murdering Ms Mickleburgh between April 12 and 14, 2024, and also denies a charge of controlling and coercive behaviour between May 1, 2022, and April 14, 2024.
Telegraph
21-07-2025
- Telegraph
Woman ‘murdered by ex-fiancé at luxury hotel owed him £100,000'
A father accused of murdering his ex-fiancé 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-fiancé, 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. Mr 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, Mr Cartwright told the court that Ms Mickleburgh bought 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. Mr Cartwright, who wore a dark suit to his trial, told jurors: 'I was deeply shocked and very upset and very hurt.' 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,' Mr Rutherford, his defence barrister, 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. Mr 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.' The defendant said he had been married and divorced three times and had three adult daughters. Mr 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 Independent
21-07-2025
- The Independent
Woman allegedly murdered by ex-fiance at hotel ‘owed him £100,000', court told
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.
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Yahoo
Woman allegedly murdered by ex-fiance at hotel ‘owed him £100,000', court told
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.
The Independent
18-07-2025
- The Independent
Woman fractured skull before ex allegedly strangled her to death in luxury hotel
A woman allegedly strangled to death by her ex partner in a luxury hotel sustained a fractured skull before she died, a court has heard. 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. Dr Robert Chapman, who conducted a post-mortem examination on April 18, found she died by 'manual compression of the neck' consistent with 'strangulation or throttling'. The level of haemorrhaging suggested continuous pressure was placed on her neck for 30 seconds, he told jurors on Friday. Prosecutor Louise Oakley played a stop watch for 30 seconds to give the court 'an understanding of that length of time in real life'. Her skull had also been fractured near her right eye socket while she was still alive, Dr Chapman told the court. Pathologists use a three-point scale to measure the use of force: mild, moderate, and severe. Dr Chapman said evidence of a bone fracturing would generally lead to a conclusion of 'severe force, so at the top end of the scale'. Asked how someone would sustain such an injury, Dr Chapman said: 'This is the result of a blunt impact of some sort to the right side of the forehead'. Giving a list of possible causes, he said: 'A heavy, unprotected fall onto a hard surface, so someone falling and striking their head onto a hard surface without protecting themselves by putting their arms out. 'A blow with a firm object could also do it. The possibility of a head being forced, or forcibly impacted, against a flat surface like a wall could also produce that type of injury.' He could not say which option was more likely. The prosecutor asked if the injuries would align with 'the forcing of Samantha Mickleburgh into a wall resulting in a fracture to her skull, resulting in a period perhaps of reduced consciousness, or concussion' before she was moved onto the bed and strangled. Dr Chapman said 'there's nothing in the pathology that could undermine that particular sequence, but that's a particular sequence', later adding that there were other possible scenarios too. He agreed that Ms Mickleburgh could not have inflicted the injuries on herself. Cartwright claimed that Ms Mickleburgh had rolled out of bed during the night, hit her head on the bedside table, had a nose bleed and later died in her sleep, the trial heard previously. The doctor accepted defence barrister Martin Rutherford's proposition that some of the injuries could have been caused by falling onto a hard object in the room such as the floor tiles, bedside table, or radiator. Ms Oakley asked if the injuries 'in their totality' were 'consistent with somebody falling out of her bed, banging her head, falling back onto the bed, falling asleep, and dying in her sleep?' Dr Chapman said 'no'. On April 15, prior to police seizing his devices, a factory reset was performed on Cartwright's iPhone Pro Max. Its contents was subsequently restored from a backup using his desktop computer. The blouse worn to dinner by Ms Mickleburgh on April 13 was later found in a drawer in a property in Axminster with 'light, indistinct blood staining' on the right sleeve. Forensics concluded that the blood 'had been removed or altered in the intervening period, probably by washing', Ms Oakley said as she read out agreed facts. Cartwright, 61, of no fixed address, is on trial accused of 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.
