Banbury murder-accused 'cancelled daughter's visits' to victim

A woman accused of starving her millionaire landlord to death cancelled his daughter's visits and kept her locked out of his home, a court heard.

Anthony Sootheran's body was found at High Havens Farm, near South Newington, Oxfordshire, in March 2014.

Lynda Rickard, 62, "isolated and controlled" the 59-year-old as part of a plan to steal his fortune, Reading Crown Court was previously told.

She and her husband Wayne Rickard, 66, both from Banbury, deny murder.

Mrs Rickard, who previously lived at the farm, admits forging wills in the names of both Mr Sootheran and his mother, Joy, as well as spending tens of thousands of pounds of their money, the jury has heard.

The defendant tried to inherit the farm and a third of her landlord's £3.5m estate, prosecutors previously said.

Hannah Sootheran, 32, told the court her father "pleaded" to see her when they met at his mother's funeral in 2012.

She said: "He looked awful. Dirty, very withered... scraggly hair, baling twine so he didn't have a belt. It just wasn't my dad."

However she said subsequent arranged visits were "normally cancelled" by Mrs Rickard, who said her father was unwilling, too ill or away from home.

She said on five occasions he subsequently phoned and insisted he had been available all along.

Ms Sootheran said Mrs Rickard did not give her a gate lock code for the farm when requested.

She said: "Dad wanted to sell the farm but didn't know how to approach it with Lynda because... she'd be made homeless."

Under cross-examination, she said visits to her father were successful half of the time.

The "reclusive, vulnerable" millionaire lived in a room which was like a "foul, unhygienic cell", the court previously heard.

A health expert said he ate little food in the three weeks before his death and would have survived if he had been medically treated, the jury was told.

Mr Sootheran died from a lung infection caused by malnutrition either on 18 March 2014 when his body was found or up to three days before, prosecutors said.

Mrs Rickard denies gross negligence manslaughter, while her husband denies causing or allowing the death of a vulnerable adult, as alternatives to the murder charge.

They both deny fraudulently using Joy Sootheran's money to buy a Mitsubishi Shogun car.

Three of Mrs Rickard's friends, Shanda Robinson, 51, and Michael Dunkley, 49, from Banbury, and Denise Neal, 41, from Lower Tysoe, Warwickshire, deny fraudulently signing wills. However, another friend, June Alsford, 78, from Aynho, Northamptonshire, has admitted the charge.

Mr Rickard denies perverting the course of justice by attempting to pass off a will as genuine while Ms Robinson denies conspiring to do the same.

The trial continues.

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