Killer of children’s author goes on trial charged with murdering wife

Ian Stewart was initially able to ‘fool’ medical professionals by suggesting his wife had died in the course of an epileptic fit, the prosecution alleges. Photograph: Hertfordshire Constabulary/PA

The man who killed the children’s author Helen Bailey in 2016 has gone on trial for previously murdering his first wife after a re-examination of her brain showed she had been suffocated.

Ian Stewart, 61, is charged with the murder of Diane Stewart, who died at their Cambridgeshire home in June 2010 in an incident he had initially been able to fool medics into believing was an epileptic fit.