THE FINANCIAL adviser accused of murdering a wealthy spinster by smothering her with a pillow was at home in bed with his wife when his car registration plates were clocked on motorway cameras, a jury has heard.

Uganda-born John Peter Crittenden, 64, who allegedly seduced 71-year-old Joan Beddeson, of Rayleigh Close, before cheating her out of £280,000 and then killing her when she demanded the money back, said he could not explain how his car came to be seen on the M5.

"I was not driving the car. I was at home in bed with my wife Iris. I have no idea how my car was recorded there," he said yesterday (Tuesday).

For the first time in two days sitting in the witness stand of Court Three at Chester Crown Court, Crittenden appeared ruffled.

He gave one-word answers to questions fired out by Alex Carlile QC, counsel for the prosecution.

Credit card records showed that Crittenden refuelled at a motorway service station, in Worcester, before his car, a Toyota Avensis bought with the money he claimed Joan had given him as a gift, was recorded heading north towards Macclesfield.

"Had Worcestershire been invaded by car driving aliens that night?" Lord Carlile put to him.

"Weren't you heading north toward Macclesfield, where you had already unlocked the patio door ready for you to go and kill Miss Beddeson?"

"Wouldn't it be better to show a bit of remorse at this early part of the investigation?"

"Look at the jury and give them an explanation."

Crittenden replied angrily: "I can't explain why my car was seen there."

"I have taken an oath, sworn on the Bible as a Christian and spoken the truth."

The jury heard that Crittenden had spoken to Joan only hours before she was killed on that autumnal Friday night, but that he could not recall their last conversation.

The prosecution alleges that Crittenden had made that phone call and left several messages on the answer phone that he had installed only weeks earlier, as a way to "deflect suspicion from himself."

Lord Carlile asked: "Wasn't the shock of discovering her dead cause to remember the last conversation you had with Joan Beddeson?"

"It didn't come flowing back how you told her that you loved her?"

Crittenden told the jury "I do not remember the precise words."

He denies murdering Joan Beddeson on November 15, 2002, and three counts of theft.

Earlier the jury had heard how Joan had threatened to burn her £280,000 in investments that had become a burden to her unless Crittenden took them.

Crittenden claimed that if he had not accepted the three cheques she would burn the money on the front lawn in a big bonfire.

The court heard that cash was squandered on high-risk business ventures, property loaned to friends and family and a new car.

When asked if he would have to pay the money back, he replied: "It was my money. Quite clearly a gift to me. Any benefits from it would come to me."

Joan cashed in all of her savings just three months after she first met Crittenden - she had answered an advert in the Times newspaper, seeking advice on how to invest her money that she had inherited from her uncle in the 1980s.

During this time - between November 2000 and February 2001 - Crittenden had started a sexual relationship with the retired tax clerk and drawn up an eight-point action plan with Joan.

Crittenden told the jury that on that list were plans for Joan to draw up a new will; sell all of her investments; sell her house; move into a hotel in Worcester; fund business opportunity venture and buy property investments.

Within weeks Joan had cashed in all of her investments, transferred the great sum to Crittenden's bank account, put her house on the market and rewritten her will in Crittenden's favour.

Crittenden said that the investment advice was unconventional but that she had not been happy when the money was put away so he had created a more interesting way for her to use it.

The case continues.