Murder accused ‘planned Thai sex trip’

A WOMAN has told a murder trial how her relationship with a boyfriend began to cool after he booked a holiday in the “sex tourism” destination of Thailand.

Lynsey Methven said Frank Moore had arranged the trip without telling her, and while he insisted a previous visit to the country had been for fishing, she saw “photographic evidence” to the contrary.

A jury at the High Court in Edinburgh heard that Moore, 43, would become jealous if Ms Methven, 30, spoke to other men, even people he knew.

The evidence came at the opening of a trial yesterday in which Moore is accused of murdering a man and attacking Ms Methven in her home in the Grange area of Edinburgh, and starting a fire in the flat.

Moore, of Bothwell Crescent, Edinburgh, pleads alibi to the charges of murdering Stewart Taylor, 33, and attempting to murder Ms Methven in the flat in Chalmers Crescent on 7 February.

It is alleged he entered the flat uninvited and attacked them with an unknown blunt instrument. He is said also to have repeatedly punched and kicked Mr Taylor and to have stamped on his head, and to have struck Ms Methven repeatedly on the body with a knife, before wilfully starting a fire and locking them in the flat.

Moore further denies charges of assaulting the couple on earlier occasions, and of making menacing phone calls to Ms Methven.

Ms Methven said she worked for a bookmaker, but was unfit currently because of her injuries.

She met Moore, a friend of a cousin, on her birthday in October 2009, and they began a relationship some months later. As a result of problems with a former boyfriend, she had always been very guarded in revealing her address to people, she added.

Asked if she had divulged to Moore where she lived, she replied: “Unfortunately, yes. He had stayed for a week when he found himself between flats.”

She recounted how things would be fine if she talked to women during their evenings out at a bar, but if she ever chatted to men “it was different”.

She said: “He would not be happy about it, probably get a little bit jealous, even though he knew these people.”

Once, she had been having “normal chit-chat” with a man who had just split with his girlfriend, and it ended with a fight outside and she understood the man had been headbutted.

“In a way it was quite frightening because I did not know Frank had a temper, and I did not think the boy deserved to be hit because he had not done anything wrong,” said Ms Methven.

On another occasion, she had been on her sofa at home and there was a knock at the door. Somebody shouted through the letterbox and she had been scared because she believed if was her former boyfriend. She did not answer the door, and someone climbed in her window.

“I heard a rustling of the blind in my bedroom. I was paralysed with fear and did not want to go through. Frank came into the living room and said, ‘Why the f*** did you not answer the door?’

“He was very angry or concerned. It calmed down and I stayed the night at Frank’s,” said Ms Methven.

Their relationship began to deteriorate in November last year.

“As soon as I found out he had booked himself to go to Thailand for six weeks and he had not even told me,” she said.

She knew Thailand had a reputation for “sex tourism”, and that Moore had been there before, although he had said it was for fishing.

“But a lot of photographic evidence came out,” she added.

Ms Methven is due to resume her evidence today.