Lover in shed trial jury set to go out

A JURY will be asked today to decide whether a bakery heiress who lived in a shed tried to cover up a murder.

Rita Heyster, 57, from Peebles, has been cleared of helping murder mother-of-four Carol Jarvis whose decomposing body was found under the floorboards of her West Lothian home in September 2009.

Heyster remains in the dock at the High Court in Edinburgh, accused of attempting to defeat the ends of justice - a charge which she denies.

Her trial has heard how Carol's husband, Harry Jarvis, 61, is serving a life sentence after being convicted earlier this year of murdering his wife "by means unknown" and dumping her remains, taped up in a blanket, among the rubbish in the basement in Balbardie Crescent, Bathgate.

The trial has also heard that at the time of the murder, neighbours knew that Heyster was living in a shed in the Jarvis' garden.