AN ABERGAVENNY man planned to frighten his lover but killed her after he ‘did not get the answers he wanted’, Newport Crown Court heard today.

Peter Morgan, 54, of Llanellen Court Farm, Llanellen, is charged with the murder of Georgina Symonds, 25, on January 12 at Pencoed Castle Bungalow, close to Llanmartin, where she was living.

Morgan denies murder, citing diminished responsibility due to Asperger’s Syndrome – a type of autism – but has admitted to the unlawful killing of Miss Symonds.

As the second week of the trial started, Newport Crown Court was shown footage of a fourth police interview with Morgan, which took place on January 14.

Throughout the interview, he admitted his responsibility in killing the mother-of-one, with whom he had a relationship, adding that he acted alone and was unaided.

“That is me and that is what I’ve done,” he said in relation to CCTV footage.

He later added: “It is not going to make one iota of difference. Everything that I’ve told that I’ve done, I’ve done.

“Nobody else helped me. Nobody else was involved. It was all my own doing. Anybody else’s fingerprints or DNA is there by accident."

The court heard that in the November before the incident, Morgan placed a bugging device in Miss Symonds' bungalow.

Morgan said he would sporadically listen in to what was happening, after he became concerned for her welfare and an increased use of alcohol and cocaine.

In the lead-up to the alleged murder, Morgan said he overheard a conversation involving the 25-year-old which prompted him to ‘frighten her’.

“It was Sunday or Monday night, she said as soon as she had the bungalow, she would be going back to London as an escort again,” he added.

“I did not go there with the intention to kill her.

“I hope she would be frightened and agree not to do anything. At this point I strangled her.”

“I put the rope around her neck and pulled it tight-ish,” he said.
He added that he pulled the rope around her neck twice, with the second time exerting more force, after initially loosening the rope.

“It was just to show her I wasn’t trying to kill her. I was just trying to frighten her.

“I hoped she would say that she was sorry,” he said, but instead, the reply was ‘you are going to pay for this.”

He told officers that as he accepted killing Miss Symonds, he was hoping to spend as little time in court as possible.

“My concern is I just want to go into court, plead guilty and get locked up,” he said.

“I love her. I still wish she was here,” he added.

Steve Attwood, a consultant psychiatrist, found Morgan to be “pleasant and appropriate", the jury heard.

He added that Morgan had said to him: “I don’t know why I did it. She was the love of my life.”

“I thought about it the day before – strangling her. I didn’t know what I was going to do, I don’t know how I was going to benefit. It was pre-mediated, I had rope.”

Dr Attwood added that he found no history of mental illness and confirmed that Morgan was fit for interview.

Proceeding.