Ex-mistress tells trial of scratches

The former mistress of a man accused of murdering his wife and two children 27 years ago admitted yesterday that she decided not to tell police that her lover had deep scratches on his arm at the time his family disappeared.

John Allen, 68, is accused of murdering Patricia Allen, 39, and their children Jonathan, seven, and Victoria, five, in Devon in May 1975. They have never been found.

On the second day of the trial at Exeter Crown Court, Eunice Yabsley, 67, told the jury Mr Allen came to see her in Salcombe on 27 May 1975, the day after his wife disappeared.

She said Mr Allen was with his children and said his wife had left him. "He was shaken and upset ... He said he and Patricia had quarrelled and she had gone," she said.

Mr Allen's shirt cuff fell back and she noticed "parallel, deep scratches running from wrist to his elbow", she said. She agreed with prosecution counsel that she made no mention of the scratches in her police interview in October 1975. "By the time I came to make the statement I had been living with him for some time. I loved him very much. I could not believe he had harmed anyone. To tell police he had scratches on his arm would blacken his name," she said.

Two days after Mr Allen visited his mistress he told her his children were with an aunt. He later said his wife had come back to collect them and had gone abroad with a boyfriend. They were never seen again.

Mr Allen moved in with Mrs Yabsley "almost immediately" after the disappearance of his family. He had begun an affair with her about a month earlier.

The police reopened the case in 2000 after re-examining Mrs Yabsley's comments in her book, Presumed Dead.