A PENSIONER tried to cover the tracks of her long-term lover after he murdered a wealthy pensioner, a trial has heard.

Benson resident Jennifer Creasey, 73, is accused of penning a Christmas card in the murder victim’s name in a bid to steer investigators away from her lover Christopher Symons.

Symons, 63, is charged with beating Patricia Goodband to death and dumping her body down a 12ft shaft in a plot to inherit her fortune.

The trial, which began at Reading Crown Court this week, has been told Creasey helped cover up the December crime because she was “passionately in love” with Symons.

Symons is accused of misleading police after sending text messages from Mrs Goodband’s mobile phone indicating she was going to Yorkshire to visit her daughter.

Creasey is alleged to have written a Christmas card to ‘Pat’ from ‘Sue’ on January 6 which implied the victim was meeting the other woman in Stockton on December 22 on the way to see her daughter in Yorkshire.

Hale Road resident Creasey, who denies two counts of perverting the course of justice, told police she did not know who Mrs Goodband was and “could not remember anything about it”.

She also claimed not to have seen Symons since before Christmas.

Joanna Glynn, prosecuting, said the elderly defendant, who appeared in court using crutches, became involved because she was “passionately in love” with Symons, with whom she was having a sexual relationship which had continued “through the years”.

Ms Glynn told the court: “We say this was an extremely callous murder. Features of it are very unusual. It was planned over a period of time. It was done for gain and the motive is clear. The perpetrator of it used other people to cover his tracks.”

The lawyer said Mrs Goodband, 76, had last been seen alive on December 22 before her body was found in the garden of her home in Woodham, near Aylesbury, on January 21 after a “painstaking investigation”.

She said: “She had been thrown down the shaft in the most callous way you could imagine.”

Symons and Mrs Goodband had been friends for more than 30 years and she was due to leave him two properties worth more than £720,000 in total plus £230,000 in her will, the court heard.

Ms Glynn added: “We say this was a cold-blooded, planned murder for financial gain.”

Symons, of Cambridge Street, Aylesbury, has denied murder and appeared in court via a video link after the jury was told he had been unwell.

His sister Kathleen Adams, of Aylesbury Road, Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, is accused of perverting the course of justice after claiming Mrs Goodband had told her she was going to visit her daughter in Yorkshire. The 74-year-old denies the charge.

The trial, which is due to last until the end of the month, continues.