A wife murderer confesses at last: I buried her body in the woods, admits businessman a year after being jailed

• Adrian Prout convicted of murdering wife despite no corpse
• He claimed she walked out on him after rows
• Mrs Prout went missing on Bonfire Night 2007

A businessman who was convicted of murdering his wife despite her body never being found has finally told police where he buried her, it emerged last night.
Adrian Prout always swore he had never harmed his spouse Kate, but was found guilty of murder despite the absence of a corpse.
He had claimed she disappeared of her own volition after a series of rows.

Wedding day: The Prouts in 2000. The shock admission came four years after Mrs Prout, a retired schoolteacher mysteriously vanished in 2007

But yesterday in a dramatic development, he confessed in prison that he had killed her and buried her body in woodland near his 276-acre estate.
The shock admission came four years after Mrs Prout, a retired schoolteacher mysteriously vanished on Bonfire night, 2007.
At the time of her disappearance, Prout insisted that the 55-year-old simply walked out on him, leaving behind all her personal belongings.

 

He waited five days before reporting her missing and police found no sign of  her body despite massive searches of the couple's farm in Redmarley,  Gloucestershire.
Prout, who organised commercial shoots and ran a company which laid pipes for  utility companies, was convicted of murder by a 10-1 majority after a three week trial in February 2010.
After the case Kate Prout's brother Richard Wakefield, tearfully pleaded with  him to reveal what he had done with her body so relatives could 'lay her to rest'.

Confession: Adrian Prout was convicted even though his wife's body had not been found

'Nothing will bring Kate back to us, but we are pleased that justice has been done,' he said at the time.
He added: ‘We would, however, appeal to Adrian to tell us what happened to Kate and where she is because we would like to lay her to rest and say our goodbyes.'
After he was jailed Prout and his new wife, with whom he has a son, waged a campaign which continued to plead his innocence for the crime.
But yesterday he made the shock confession to detectives in the prison where he is serving a life sentence for the crime.
He is understood to have told them that his wife’s corpse was buried in  woodland he owned near his estate in Redmarley, Gloucestershire.
Last night a spokesman for Gloucestershire Police said: ‘Police who  investigated the murder have received significant information about the case.
‘Officers are reviewing this information and will be following up the matter  with some urgency.’
It is understood police will begin digging at the site for Kate’s body in the  next few days.
Prout’s admission comes only days after the sale of his £1.6million farm, the former marital property, where his fiancée Debbie Garlick, lived with their daughter Evie, one..
Last night, 40-year-old Ms Garlick was unavailable for comment at her new home.
In Prout’s trial, the jury heard how his wife wrote in her diary about her  disintegrating marriage.
‘Adrian couldn’t wait to ‘get rid of me’ out of his life’, she said in one entry.
By 2006, Mrs Prout would often stay with friends after arguing with her husband and when she disappeared, her killer insisted that this time she had probably  gone away for good.
Shortly before vanishing she had demanded an £800,000 divorce  settlement, £200,000 more than Prout had offered.
Jailing him for a minimum of 18 years, Judge Mr Justice Nigel Davis told Prout: 'I have no way of knowing what your inner feelings must have been or what they  are now. You have shown no emotion through this trial.'
He added: 'One of the pieces of evidence that will stick in my mind is that  Kate remembered her parents by laying flower on her grave.
'I suspect the family of Kate may like to lay flowers on her grave. They cannot because of you.'

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