Corston house fire could have been insurance job claims accused wife (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Corston house fire could have been insurance job claims accused wife

10:44am Thursday 2nd July 2009

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THE VICTIM of a house fire at Corston could have started it herself, the woman accused of being responsible claimed in court.

Mother of two Paula Outlaw made the claim at Swindon Crown Court yesterday where she is being tried on an allegation of arson at the home of her husband’s lover Kim Morgan.

She told the jury the blaze, which caused £220,000-worth of damage, could have been an insurance scam by Ms Morgan and her own husband, builder Shaun Outlaw.

Giving evidence on the second day of the trial, she said she said she had a mysterious phone call in October 2006 alerting her to an affair between her husband and Ms Morgan, but when she confronted him he denied it. So did Ms Morgan.

But one night two months later she went with one of her daughters to the Radnor Arms and found them together.

"I just said: ‘You’ve made your choice, get on with it,’" she told the court.

As she left she said she was challenged to a fight by Ms Morgan and that her daughter was attacked by her.

She said her husband spent the night at the pub but later said he could remember nothing. He promised to give up drinking.

"The main point of him leaving was for him to stop drinking."

Although he moved out he visited the family home in Rodbourne Road daily. Outlaw said she still washed his clothes and occasionally they spent the night together.

The evening before she was arrested she was told the affair between Mr Outlaw and Ms Morgan was continuing.

She tried to call her husband’s mobile but could not reach him and called a friend because she believed he had bought another phone for his lover to contact him on.

She said she was upset more than angry.

Asked to explain glass fragments found in her clothing by forensic experts she said: "There was glass broken in my house that night. I was smashing every photo in the house that had Sean and me in."

She denied leaving the house that evening and claimed the first time she knew there had been a fire was when she was arrested.

Under cross-examination by prosecutor Philip Warren, Outlaw, who is currently serving a four-and-a-half year jail term for wounding Ms Morgan on March 8, 2008, insisted that incident was a fight and said the only reason she had been carrying a knife was because she was self-harming.

And on that occasion the reason she was carrying a can of lighter gas was to inhale it. "I was inhaling it to get out of my face because I couldn’t cope with what was going on."

Mr Warren suggested the fact that the lovers got out of town on the night of the fire was because they knew how angry she was.

But Outlaw replied it suggested her husband was still living a lie and did not want to be found out.

Mr Warren asked why she gave two "no comment" interviews to police, one before she was jailed for the March 08 stabbing and one after, when she could have told them about smashing glass in her own home.

She replied that the first was on her solicitor's advice and the second was because she did not trust the police following the March incident.

The trial continues

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