Former Bank of England adviser Stuart Andrews, 54, was last week sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 15 years after pleading guilty to murdering his wife Caroline, 52, at their Benenden bungalow.
Maidstone Crown Court heard that hours after strangling his wife in February the City consultant bought a bottle of Prosecco and checked into a London hotel with another woman with whom he planned to set up an escort agency.
He triggered a manhunt after the body of the supply teacher was found at the home from which the debt-ridden family were about to be evicted.
The father of four tried to ease their predicament by stealing £267,000 from his father-in-law who had dementia and had moved in with them.
It was after he was informed that the family had to leave their home that the Oxford classics graduate lost his temper and during an argument killed his wife in their bedroom.
Following the attack he told one of his children that their mother was unwell and not to be disturbed.
He boarded a train for London, booked into the hotel and while drinking martinis in the bar texted his wife’s friend Heather Sheldon to say: “I am sorry and, this is beyond belief, I have accidentally killed Caroline.
“In a second I will have killed myself too. The body is in our bedroom.”
Andrews later tried to kill himself. He was discovered by police after calling hotel reception and asking for an ambulance.
The court also heard how Andrews had written a note addressed to his ‘dear children’ following his unsuccessful attempt at suicide.
In it he said he had ruined the lives of his family by squandering their money, which had forced him to sell the previous family home in Eynsford, for £700,000 in 1998.
He said of the murder: “It started as an accident when we were fighting but went too far.”
In the note he told the children their mother was a ‘beautiful, kind and caring’ person and said he ‘loved them too’ but he couldn’t ‘carry on living’.
He was found in the hotel around 24 hours following the murder, after he had called reception asking for an ambulance, saying he had tried to kill himself.
In addition, he told the reception to call the police, who he knew were after him.
However, other notes were also found, in which Andrews blamed his wife for the incident, stating she had been ‘attacking’ and ‘goading’ him before he killed her, claiming he was ‘not really a monster’.
