Addict 'ordered killing of her mother'

Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent
26.10.09

The daughter of a millionairess strangled in her £700,000 Surrey home was today accused of arranging the killing.

Maureen Cosgrove, 65, was murdered with a ligature in the kitchen of her house in Carshalton Beeches by George Maben, 45, the Old Bailey has heard.

But Maben's barrister Rebecca Poulet QC suggested his girlfriend, the victim's daughter Lucy Rees, was behind the killing. Mrs Cosgrove, a mother of four, had lived with her daughter and her two children for 18 months, after her husband Terence, a financial consultant, was found hanged in 2007, aged 66. Neighbours said the couple had struggled to cope with their daughter's drug addiction. Mrs Poulet suggested Lucy Rees, 34, who was pregnant, had contacted Peter Carr, who she had met at the Priory clinic, on 15 April to order the killing of Maben's daughter Marie, 19.

Mrs Poulet said that after Maben was arrested, Ms Rees "started to tell police about something that was stupid that you had done." Ms Rees said: 'It was drunken ramblings, I didn't actually do anything." The trial continues.

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