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The Eastbourne Herald
13:08 13:08 Friday 14 October 2005
A FATHER accused of murdering his wife took an overdose of anti-depressants in jail while standing trial.
Terry Bailey had made two botched suicide bids in Eastbourne before he died in Lewes Prison.
He was just about to take the stand and give evidence in his defence when he was found dead in his C wing cell by his cellmate, an inquest at Lewes Magistrates Court heard yesterday.
The 58-year-old first tried to take an overdose after the killing, but when that failed he recruited his son Brian to help him take his life. He asked Brian to drive over his head and smash him over the head with a spirit level. The tool broke and Brian went into a nearby pub to confess to staff he had been trying to kill his father.
Painter and decorator Terry Bailey had denied killing Devonshire Park Hotel housekeeper Susan Bailey at her home in Channel View Road in August 2004. He strangled her after returning from a golfing holiday in Portugal to find she had moved out of their former marital home in Gilbert Road, Lewes Crown Court heard during the murder trial.
After the killing he then fled to a hotel in Warwick where he tried to kill himself by taking an overdose of painkillers.He was eventually arrested two days later at the Pease Pottage Services in West Sussex.
Mr Bailey had been on remand in Lewes Prison during the trial when he died.The family of Mrs Bailey, including daughter Tina, were furious that he had escaped justice and branded him ‘evil’. ‘He’s in the right place but he got there at the wrong time — it’s us who have got the life sentence now,’ said Tina at the time of his death.’
He’s taken a mother, a grandmother, an auntie, a sister, everything, and now we won’t see him pay for it.’ The inquest jury had not returned a verdict by the time The Herald went to press.