To call Annette Russill's past chequered is an understatement.

The 65-year-old white haired widow from Rochford shocked Basildon Crown Court when she confessed she was illiterate.

She defensively told the jury: "Don't think I'm a criminal. It is not my fault I cannot read or write. I am not a bad person."

Born in Dublin, she moved to England when she was 14.

Russill lived alone in her Leicester Avenue house, but had a long-term boyfriend, Jerry. She drove a sporty gold Vauxhall Tigra car.

In the 80s she cared for elderly people at her home. In a statement read to the court, a neighbour recalled how she sometimes heard shouting from Russill's address, followed by sobs from the pensioners.

The premises was never officially registered as a care home.

For years she claimed to have a twin sister called Mary Hinch. Her sibling was imaginary, but this name was often given to the authorities, including the police.

Her previous convictions for handling a stolen driving licence and theft date back to 1953.

She took in six-year-old Annette who was in council care and called her her daughter. The pair's relationship was extremely rocky. Mr Spillman told the court they would not speak for months, or even years, and then suddenly become close friends, "meeting regularly for shopping trips and lunches".

After no contact during 1996, mother and daughter were reunited at the start of 1997, much to David Spillman's dismay.

He told the court: "Annette was seeing more and more of her mother. I kept out of the way. From past experience when they got together it normally ended in tears - usually Annette's."

There was no love lost between Spillman and Russill. They had never got on, and the situation worsened followed Annette's trip to Ireland in 1995.

Spillman said: "Russill is probably the last person on earth I would trust with anything."

Russill claimed she was bullied by Spillman into disguising herself as Annie Kay and he threatened to harm her, her boyfriend and her dog.

She claimed he made her practise the spinster's signature "every minute of the day" until minutes before the solicitor arrived, he cried My Fair Lady style, "She's got it!"

Annie's home - the bungalow she left behind

Bid to keep plot trio apart

Special steps were taken before the trial started to keep the defendants apart until the very moment they came into the dock.

Spillman would try to speak to his wife at every possible moment, Mr Justice Michael Yelton was told at a directions hearing before the trial began.

Defence counsel Mr Cooper said: "Mr and Mrs Spillman must be kept separate even when they are being brought up into the dock. He tries to persuade her back by tugging at the emotional strings."

Spillman was believed to be trying to get her to plead guilty so it would make things better for him.

Defendants usually wait in a side room until the judge comes in, but Mr Justice Yelton said arrangements would be made so they were brought up from the cells separately.

The judge also suggested having the husband and wife at opposite ends of the dock, but was told by Mr Cooper that this wouldn't be necessary.

Arrangements were made for Russill to be kept in a police cell overnight on the days she gave her evidence.

After she pleaded guilty while on remand at Holloway, where Mrs Spillman was, she was moved to another prison.

At the pre-trial directions hearing, Russill's defence counsel said: "My client is extremely worried about returning to Holloway where Annette Spillman is."

The court was told solicitors had written to the prison service about Russill's concerns.

Spillman's stormy background

David Spillman's life has been a rollercoaster ride of criminal convictions and personal upheaval.

Shortly after marrying his first wife Rosemary, when he was 19, he was charged with theft and received a six month suspended prison sentence.

Two years later he was given 75 hours community service for stealing a car, and less than 12 months later was jailed for three and a half years for two counts of robbery.

At the age of 26, Spillman was again convicted of theft and impersonating a police officer and put behind bars for 28 days.

The couple, who had two children, Luke and Adele, divorced in 1980, the same year he met Annette. They wed in 1982, and their only son, Daniel, was born in 1987. The three were joined at their Guildford Road home by Annette's son from her previous marriage, Gary.

The couple's marriage was stormy. Spillman claims Annette objected to him seeing the children from his previous marriage.

Mr Spillman said: "Things were better when Daniel was young."

In the early 90s, arguments began again and Mr Spillman took to drinking on a daily basis.

He told the court: "My doctor considers me a chronic alcoholic. I did a lot of very reckless things when I was drinking."

Last year Mr Spillman lost his licence - and therefore his livelihood as a long distance lorry driver.

Work had been sporadic over the last few years and the family relied on Annette's income as a home help to pay the bills.

Annette left Spillman for two months in 1995, with their son. She fled to Ireland to stay with her mother's relatives.

Spillman claimed this was due to pressure of work as Annette was running their house as a care home at the time.

He said: "When she (Annette) had returned after going away, she said, it was not me, it was the old people. She could not cope anymore."

Although their three-bedroomed semi had been on the care homes register for three years, Mr Spillman claims he was reluctant to take in Annie Kay and Patrick Wedd in July 1996, fearing his wife may suffer again.

Last year Spillman was sentenced to five months behind bars after he was found guilty of causing Annette actual bodily harm.

When he left jail the couple split for good. Spillman spent some time living in homeless shelters in Southend, before securing his address in St Andrew's Road, Shoebury.

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