A STARTLED court heard murder suspect Robert Lund accuse his dead wife's family of colluding with police to get him convicted.

But his allegations that a pair of glasses central to the case had been moved by the dead woman's relatives were refuted by her best friend.

Former Darwen woman Evelyn Lund disappeared after leaving the farm-house she shared with her husband in the southern French village of La Veaute on December 29, 1999.

Almost two years later, her body was found on the back seat of her red Toyota 4x4, after a drought revealed that it had been submerged in Lake Bancalie, 15 miles from her home.

Lund, who has always denied killing his wife, is accused of unpremeditated murder and faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted at the Cour d'Assises in Albi.

Evelyn vanished after visiting her friends Marianne and Alan Ramsey following a row with Lund, 55.

The court heard when the former Blackburn Council tree protection officer told police his wife was missing he said she had her handbag and glasses with her.

And Mrs Ramsey said Evelyn was wearing her glasses when she came to her house. Both items were later found at the Lunds' home, suggesting Evelyn had returned home before she disappeared.

During cross examination about the bag, Lund said he believed Evelyn's daughter Patricia had made up stories about it and its whereabouts.

He said he thought another of Evelyn's daughters, Victoria Taylor, and son-in-law Lance Camden had brought the glasses back from the Ramseys' house when they visited them on January 11.

And in an outburst in English, he said: "The declarations (from Evelyn's family) are all the exact same words - is that a coincidence? Is it a collaboration? Or is it the words of the police?"

Mrs Ramsey, a former military police officer, said Evelyn had been hysterical when she arrived at her house.

She insisted that Evelyn was wearing glasses because she had to move them each time she wiped her eyes with kitchen paper. Evelyn had not left her glasses behind and they had not been passed on to either Mr Camden or Miss Taylor, she added.

Evelyn, 52, a mother-of-three, grew up in Rawtenstall and her parents still live in Rossendale. She met Lund, who lived in Anyon Street, Darwen, just after the death of her first husband, Burnley building society manager Arthur Taylor, from cancer.

They moved to France to start a new life in 1997.

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