Couple hired killer to murder Carol Morgan, Luton trial told

The prosecutor said that at the time of the killing, Mr Morgan, who had married Carol in 1977, had been having a year-long affair with married Margaret Spooner, as she was then known.

He told police he would deliver groceries to his now-wife’s home and would have sex with her three times a week while her husband was at work.

Mr Panayi said a divorce was financially out of the question as the couple had debts.

Soon after the alleged murder, Mrs Morgan left her husband and moved in with Mr Morgan and they have been together ever since.

Mr Panayi said: “The prosecution say these two individuals were involved in a passionate, but forbidden and adulterous love affair which was the background to a plan which they both hatched together in secret to arrange and pay for the murder of Allen’s wife Carol Morgan.”

He said that on the night of the killing, Mr Morgan took the victim’s two children from her previous marriage to see a double bill at the Odeon cinema in Dunstable Road, Luton.

The court heard this was unusual as he did not have a “strong relationship with the children” and had never taken them out without their mother previously.

“During their absence Carol was alone in the shop. She closed the shop at 6pm. After she closed, an attacker or attackers entered the premises and struck.”

The trial continues.