Ian Stewart: Helen Bailey's killer 'in bits' over wife Diane Stewart's death, court hears

A man convicted of killing a children's author was "in bits" when his wife died, his son has told a court.

Ian Stewart, 61, was found guilty of murdering his partner, writer Helen Bailey, in Hertfordshire in 2016.

He is on trial charged with killing his wife Diane Stewart, at the family home in Cambridgeshire in 2010.

Their son Oliver Stewart, 27, said his parents' relationship was "loving" and his father had been "in bits".

Stewart denies murdering his wife, 47, in Bassingbourn on 25 June 2010, six years before he killed his partner, Ms Bailey, at the Royston home they lived in together.

Mrs Stewart's death was re-investigated after Stewart was convicted of Ms Bailey's murder in 2017.

During the opening of the current trial, Huntingdon Crown Court heard tests on Mrs Stewart's brain tissue, donated for medical research, showed that her "breathing had been restricted".

Prosecutor Stuart Trimmer, QC said Stewart was initially "able to fool medical professionals by suggesting his wife, Diane Stewart, had died in the course of an epileptic fit".

The couple's youngest son, Oliver Stewart, was 15 at the time of his mother's death.

He told the jury he identified her body, saying "she had foam coming out of her mouth" and that he his gave his mother "one last kiss".

He described the relationship between his parents as "loving, caring, kind, family-orientated".

Asked by defence barrister Amjad Malik QC how his father was at that point, he replied: "In bits."

His older brother, Jamie Stewart, who was 18 at the time, told the court when he arrived home after his mother's death, his father was "in tears and very upset and I think the neighbour and paramedics were trying to console him".

He said he knew his mother was epileptic and took two tablets every morning but had not seen her have a fit "in my lifetime".

He recalled there were "raised voices... between my mother and father" when he was at home the week his mother died, but he said he could not hear what they were talking about.

Asked to describe how his father was at the funeral, he replied: "Devastated."

He told the court within months of his mother's death, his father bought a new red sports car, then later that year, "he met someone else in an online bereavement group", he said.

The court also heard from the defendant's brother-in-law Philip Bellamy-Lee.

His wife, Mrs Stewart's sister, had wanted to visit the Bassingbourn home after the death, but Stewart did not want her there, Mr Bellamy-Lee said.

She "wanted to talk to Ian - and tried to talk to Ian on numerous occasions - to try to understand what happened and he simply wouldn't talk to her", he said.

The trial, expected to last up to four weeks, continues.

Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have a story suggestion email [email protected]