Debbie Griggs: 'Cheating' husband 'murdered' pregnant wife in 1999
The body of 'devoted' mother Debbie Griggs, 34, from Deal in Kent has never been found.
Thursday 3 October 2019 16:25, UK
A "devoted" pregnant mother-of-three - who vanished without trace 20 years ago - was murdered by her husband, a court has heard.
The body of Debbie Griggs, 34, from Deal in Kent has never been found.
Prosecutors claim Andrew Griggs, who is on trial at Canterbury Crown Court charged with murder, disposed of her and dumped her car.
They told the jury it followed suspicions he had been having a relationship with a 15-year-old girl.
Griggs, 57, denies the charges against him.
Opening the case, prosecutor Duncan Atkinson QC claimed Mrs Griggs "did not just up and leave her husband and children in the middle of the night, never to be seen or heard of again".
She "would not have just abandoned her children" - he said - and claimed the evidence points to her death being the result of "foul play".
"The evidence relating to her car, both the sighting of it, the condition of it and the science from it, all support the contention that her body had been disposed of and car dumped."
Mr Atkinson argued that the defendant was the person with "the most reason" to wish his wife disappear, amid suspicions of him having an affair with a teenage girl, as well as for business reasons.
He told the court: "Andrew Griggs moreover had not only the opportunity, on the evidence, to have killed and concealed the body of his wife, but his behaviour and his lack of consistency all point to him being the killer.
"The prosecution therefore alleges that this defendant, Andrew Griggs, killed his wife and it is for that reason that he is therefore charged with her murder."
The jury was told the couple ran a freezer business together at the time she disappeared - and that on 2 March 1999, just days before she vanished, the defendant set up a new account for the business, just in his name.
"Andrew Griggs had then closed the joint business account, a process that was completed on May 6, 1999, the day after Debbie Griggs disappeared," Mr Atkinson said.
The jury were read extracts from an affidavit that Mrs Griggs wrote that year, describing problems in her relationship.
In it, she said: "Everything we have together is in fact his, and I am only allowed to enjoy anything that is a joint matrimonial asset by reason of being with him.
"He does not let me go out by myself. His needs come first. He tells me I am sick and mad in the head."
Mrs Griggs described an incident in which her husband kneed her in the stomach, despite knowing that she was pregnant.
The trial continues.