Husband: Porn case wife innocent

The husband of a teaching assistant accused of helping him film indecent images of children told police she was innocent shortly before killing himself, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told today.

Martin Foxall said he was solely to blame for recording girls in the bedroom and bathroom of their house in Sadler Road, Brownhills, the jury heard.

He killed himself days after being questioned by detectives last summer.

Rosemary Foxall denies making indecent videos and photographs and possessing 147 indecent images. The prosecution say the couple worked together to film children.

Today, the jury heard her husband's police statement, in which he said: "I watched the stuff in secret.

"Neither my wife nor anyone else knew anything about it. Police are trying to implement my wife and she is innocent. I am solely responsible for everything."

He said his wife was not aware of him going into the loft, where one of the cameras was set up.

Foxall went in the witness box this afternoon. When asked about her relationship with her late husband, she said he was "lazy and argumentative" and often reduced her to tears.

Yesterday, the jury heard her interview with West Midlands Police officers, in which she told them she was gullible and easily led by her controlling partner.

The 49-year-old told detectives that husband Martin was the dominant force in the marriage and she "had to do what he said.

The jury heard that Foxall had told police she had no idea her husband was filming the youngsters and was not involved.

"It was a sexless marriage," she told detectives.

"We rarely had sex. We had a lot of things in common, like enjoying outdoor pursuits, but recently we had not got on that well.

"He was a very controlling man and tried to control every aspect of my life. What he said, went.

"It has been quite an unhappy marriage. I was fed up of being a nursemaid and a slave."

The court has heard claims that she lured girls to their Brownhills home for pool parties and then baths, while her husband would film them from a peephole in the loft.

Police were called when a firefighter investigating a blaze at their home stumbled across a camcorder and pornographic images of adults and children, the prosesuction claimed.

Foxall told police she was aware that her husband did have adult pornographic material in the bedroom but was not aware of any in the loft.

"The loft was a no-go area – I never went up there," she said. "He was really into his Scalextric and there was a track laid up there. I just presumed he didn't want anyone up there because of that."

The trial continues.