"IT IS absurd to suggest I killed my wife," Gordon Park told the Lady in the Lake' murder trial yesterday (Thursday).

During two hours of intense cross-examination, he repeatedly denied murdering Carol Park before dumping her body in Coniston Water in July 1976.

"Had I wanted to do such a thing I would have had the opportunity, yes," said the 60-year-old retired teacher, adding: "There is no way I had a motive for killing Carol.

"She was my wife, the mother of my children. I had been alone and I didn't like being alone. It's absurd to suggest I killed her."

Prosecuting barrister Alistair Webster QC suggested Park, of Norland Avenue, Barrow, had swallowed his pride once too often, as Carol had engaged in a string of affairs and left him twice for other lovers.

"Did you find it humiliating she had run off with someone else? Did you find it humiliating she was having sex with someone else behind your back?"

"Yes," replied Park, as Mr Webster continued pressing him saying he told police that in 1976 he had found out about more affairs.

"She hurt you once too often, did she not? Even you had had enough."

Gordon Park replied: "Mr Webster, if you knew this girl you could have forgiven her."

Mr Webster suggested that just as with the knots used to truss up Carol Park's body, Park had weaved together "strands of truth and fiction" in the course of his evidence.

Park said that was "absoloutely untrue." However, he conceded he had once lied under oath during custody proceedings for the Parks' three children in 1975. At that time he said he was not having sexual relations with Judith Walmsley, his girlfriend, in 1975 when Carol had left him to live with her ownlover, David Brearley, although he had.

Mr Webster also suggested that Park must have harboured some resentment towards Carol for deserting him with no warning in 1976. Yet when he was told that her body had been found by divers in Coniston Water in 1977, meaning that she had not deserted him but was instead a murder victim, he made no inquiries to the police.

"You didn't need to make inquiries because you knew exactly what had happened because you had put her in the lake. What you needed was time to get your thoughts together before you called the police," said Mr Webster.

Park replied he had "come straight home" from France as soon as he possibly could, but Mr Webster argued he could have come back sooner.

Park was also challenged about why he had not reported his wife missing until six weeks after her disappearance at the end of the school term on July 16.

In earlier testimony Park said he assumed his wife had left him as she had on previous occasions, although Park agreed that on each occasion where she had left him for any period of time he knew who she was with.

"You were playing for time," said Mr Webster, adding since both he and his wife were teachers the perfect time to kill her would have been at the start of the summer holidays.

Park replied: "If I wanted to murder my wife I wouldn't do it at the beginning of the school holidays with three children to look after."

A sailing log presented during cross examination noted that Park had sold his 505 sailing dinghy in July 1976, not the month before as Park earlier testified. But Park still said he believed it had been sold in June before Carol's disappearance - he didn't know why his log said July.

Before the cross examination began, Park said there was never an occasion when he used violence against his wife. He had also fought back tears as he described the couple's reunion in 1975 when he thought his wife had returned to live with him for good.

"It was wonderful, we were picking up the pieces of our lives again. I had my wife back and my children had their mother back. There was great hope.

"We had a different kind of love, it wasn't the love of the first marriage, we had hurt each other a bit since them. But at least I had her. I thought we were doing OK."

The trial continues.