A VERDICT is expected in the Lady in the Lake' murder trial next week after jurors hear Justice McCombe's summing up on Tuesday of more than seven weeks of detailed evidence.

Their decision should draw a line under a mystery that began more than three decades ago when Askam-in-Furness primary school teacher Carol Park disappeared in July 1976. Her husband, Gordon Park, 60, of Norland Avenue, Barrow, stands accused of bludgeoning her to death with a climbing axe before dumping her bound and bagged body in Coniston Water where it lay undiscovered for 21 years. He denies murder. Reporter Jennie Dennett was at Manchester Crown Court to hear the final evidence. ....

Week seven....

IN AN emotional courtroom exchange this week, Gordon Park said he was "guilty of neglect" but not murder as he admitted he had been wrong to wait six weeks before reporting his wife as a missing person.

"The fact she didn't leave a note implied to me she didn't want me to know where she was," said Park under cross-examination from Alistair Webster QC. "By the morning I had it in my head she had left again, probably with another person.

"I'm guilty of self pity. Yes, if I had acted sooner and thought she was a missing person she may have been located in time.... I'm guilty of neglect, of not having enough care for my wife."

"You are guilty of rather more than that," suggested Mr Webster.

Park replied: "No Mr Webster, I'm not guilty of anything more than that."

Mr Webster also asked him why he had not contacted his wife's family to see if she had been in touch, or even to ask his sister-in-law to help out with childcare as he had when Carol left him for another man in 1975.

"I was expecting to hear from Carol before the holidays were over, that is what I expected," said the defendant.

He was also quizzed about why he called in to see his Barrow solicitors Forresters before going to the police to eventually tell them Carol was missing.

"Forresters knew the full history, all the matrimonial problems," Park said. "I was unsure what to do so I rang them seeking advice. You seek advice when you are not sure what to do."

Mr Webster further pressed Park about why he had left a box with a friend during the police investigation. He said there was "nothing sinister" in the box, it was tapes of Buddhist lectures from Ulverston's Manjushri Meditation Centre. He said he wanted to keep them safe because he could not be sure he would get them all back if the police seized them. Police had suggested his interest in Buddhism was to handle his guilt over killing Carol.

"It was such a fatuous allegation, there was no evidence to hide," said Park. "It's police clutching at straws."

Mr Webster went on to accuse Park of glossing over his own role in the couple's marital problems, suggesting their problems started when Carol discovered him carrying contraceptives in his pocket.

"Why would you carry contraceptives in your pocket?" asked Mr Webster. Park replied: "We used to make love wherever we felt like it."

He was also quizzed about a wife-swapping incident in 1974 with Colin and Isabelle Foster.

"There were four of us in the house, we all knew what was going on. I found myself in a bedroom with Isabelle. We had a bit of a go and that was that."

Gentle man' GORDON PARK is a gentle man who does not even kill spiders, according to this third wife Jennifer.

As she took to the stand as a character witness for her husband, Mrs Park said her partner of 11 years was "not a violent person" and had certainly "never" made any confession to her that he had killed Carol Park.

"He is kind, compassionate, gentle," she said as she smiled towards the judge. "I'm very frightened of large spiders and he will always catch the spider and remove it. He wouldn't kill it."

She said her husband would "do anything" for his children and was "just a phone call away". But under cross-examination she said the couple had been upset by evidence given by Park's adopted daughter Vanessa when she described her Dad as strict and said he occasionally hit them with a stick. Park earlier testified that Christmas presents from Vanessa had gone unopened, although Mrs Park denied that Vanessa had been "frozen out".

Rachel Park, 33, who now goes by her married name Garcia, followed her step-mother into the witness box and described her father in glowing terms as her brother Jeremy also did. "He is a loving, supportive, kind, fantastic father," she said.

Mr Webster put to her a 1997 police statement when she said they had been smacked with a belt but she said she could not recall ever being hit with anything other than her father's hand.

"I was traumatised during the whole of this. My father was in prison, the media was camping on my doorstep, my mother had just been murdered... probably the police put words into my mouth."