CHILLING CCTV footage of a wealthy Gwent businessman allegedly dumping his lover's bound body in a barn, shortly after he strangled her, has been shown to a jury at Newport Crown Court.

Peter Morgan, aged 54, of Llanellen Court Farm, Llanellen, near Abergavenny, is charged with the murder of 25-year-old Georgina Symonds on January 12 this year, at Pencoed Castle Bungalow, near Llanmartin, a property of his where she was living.

Morgan is shown carrying a bundle slung from a pole, from the boot of his Porsche at around noon on January 12 this year. It is alleged that he strangled Miss Symonds , of Newport, earlier that morning.

The court has been told by prosecuting counsel William Hughes QC that Morgan told police he had been "enraged" that Miss Symonds was planning to leave him.

Mr Hughes said a listening device installed at the bungalow enabled Morgan to listen in to Miss Symonds' phone calls.

Mr Hughes cited data retrieved by police that indicated Morgan had been listening in to a phone conversation between Miss Symonds and a friend, Thomas Ballinger, on the evening of January 10.

During this phone call, he told police that Miss Symonds had told Mr Ballinger she would leave Morgan after he had signed the bungalow over to her, and would go to London and resume her career as an escort.

The data reveals, said Mr Hughes, that the listening device was called hundreds of times by Morgan between November 9 2015 and January 12 this year, the day he is alleged to have killed her in a "premeditated and well-planned" manner.

Mr Hughes told the court that the telephone and listening device data may be indicative of Morgan's obsession with Miss Symonds.

The jury was told that Morgan described to police how he had strangled Miss Symonds as they sat on a sofa at pencoed Castle Bunglaow on the morning of January 12.

After killing her, he had wrapped her body in plastic sheeting and put it in the back of his Porsche SUV before tidying up and waiting while a bath was delivered.

The jury was told that Morgan also informed the police that he had been calm before, during and after he killed Miss Symonds, and after hiding her body in a workshop at Beech Hill Farm, in Usk, he had gone about his normal business.

He said he had not thought about her again until her friend and her mother rang to tell him she had not picked up her daughter from school.

Then he had "panicked" and was dreading seeing them.

He said he had considered telling the police earlier on the evening of January 12 that he had killed Miss Symonds, but did not want to do it in front of her family and friends at the bungalow.

Morgan told police in interview: "Yes, I don't know why I did it."

He said he had loved her and "gave her everything."

He told police Miss Symonds had blamed him for the death of her former partner - her daughter's father - who hanged himself in November last year.

Social services had become involved a little later and she blamed him for that too. On the morning of January 12 she had been phoning him and blaming him, and he told police: "I couldn't take it."

He said: "When I had done it, I felt no remorse."

"I don't know what I wanted to achieve."

Morgan told police that Miss Symonds had told him might lose her daughter because of him, and if she did, she would hang herself from a tree.

He said that before Miss Symonds' former partner killed himself last November, "everything was perfect."

At a later police interview, Morgan said he had "intended to frighten, but not necessarily kill her" prosecuting counsel Mr Hughes told the jury.

Morgan told police that Miss Symonds had gone into "meltdown" after her former partner died, drinking and taking cocaine.

Morgan denied being the person who called in social services and said Miss Symonds had been "savage" to him after it happened.

Asked by officers how he had killed Miss Symonds, he said he had put the cord around her neck three times.

The first, he said, had been to try to make her see sense and he had released it "to give her a chance to be scared."

The second time, he had held it there for longer and told her he had heard of all her plans (to leave him and resume being an escort), and that he had bugged the bungalow.  

Morgan claimed that when he let go, Miss Symonds said: "You are going to pay for this."

He pulled the cord tighter again and held it for longer. "At that time I was thinking I’ve got to kill her. I thought killing her was the only option.”

Miss Symonds' mother Deborah Symonds told the jury that when her former partner killed himself, Miss Symonds was in "a terrible place."

After that, she said, "she could not get her act together and she hated Peter Morgan."

"Before that, Georgina and Peter Morgan were happy together and I was happy for them," said Mrs Symonds., who described her daughter's former partner as "the love of her life" and that his death "devastated" her.

Mrs Symonds said Morgan had wanted her daughter "back to normal straightaway and it was not going to happen."

"She was really awful to him (Morgan)," said Mrs Symonds.

She described him as being calm.

She said her daughter took cocaine and had told her she needed to, to get over the death of her former partner, as she had after her father killed himself in April last year.

Mrs Symonds said she had been so worried she phoned a drug and alcohol advice line for help.

The social services had been called in, Mrs Symonds added, after she had mentioned the drug use to her doctor, who told her they had to take that action, because there was a child living with Miss Symonds.

She told the jury when Morgan phoned her around noon on January 12, he seemed upset and told her that Georgina did not want him anymore.

The prosecution say he had killed her earlier that morning.

Morgan denies murder, and Mr Hughes told the jury that though he had admitted unlawfully killing Miss Symonds, some assessments had concluded he had Asperger's Syndrome, a type of autism, that could be considered to substantially impair his judgement and might provide a defence to murder of diminished responsibility.

Though it is to be disputed that Morgan has Asperger's Syndrome, Mr Hughes said it would ultimately be for the jury to decide whether or not he was guilty of murder.