A digger driver from Hitchin accused of murdering a wealthy Gosmore farmer told a jury yesterday that when he made love to the man’s estranged wife he would tell her he was going to get rid of her husband to sexually arouse her.

The Comet: William Taylor was reported missing in June 2018, with his body found on a riverbank at the edge of Hitchin eight months later. Picture: Herts policeWilliam Taylor was reported missing in June 2018, with his body found on a riverbank at the edge of Hitchin eight months later. Picture: Herts police (Image: Archant)

Paul Cannon, who is accused of murdering William 'Bill' Taylor alongside the farmer's estranged wife Angela Taylor, said: "I would say I want to get rid of him and I knew it excited her.

"I know she finds this stuff arousing and it excited her, it excited me. The sex becomes more intense."

Mr Cannon, of Pirton Road, Hitchin, said it was just a "little fantasy" that he and his lover Ms Taylor "got off on".

"That's what we talk about during our sex life," said the 54-year-old.

But he told the jury at St Albans Crown Court that he never had any intention of harming Mr Taylor, who went missing from his home at Harkness Hall on June 4 last year.

The 69-year-old's body was found by a fisherman eight months later on February 10 this year on a bank of the River Hiz, near Hitchin, two miles from his home.

In the dock with Mr Cannon and Ms Taylor, 53, of Charlton Road in Charlton, is Mr Cannon's work colleague Gwyn Griffiths, 60, from Folkestone in Kent who also denies murder. All three also deny an alternative lesser charge of conspiracy to murder between February 12 and June 5, 2018.

The jury has heard that hundreds of WhatsApp messages were found by detectives on Mr Cannon's phone which, say the prosecution, shows they were plotting to kill Mr Taylor in the months leading up to his death.

In the witness box Mr Cannon was asked by his barrister Michael Magarian QC about a message he had sent his lover in April of last year suggesting that he had committed two previous murders.

Mr Cannon, who had no previous convictions or cautions, replied: "It was just to build myself up in front of Angela. She likes all that sort of bravado. She likes it that I put myself across to her as a nasty bit of work. Angela finds it exciting."

Mr Magarian asked Mr Cannon about the hundreds of WhatsApp messages that had been found on the phone in which he spoke of torturing and killing Bill Taylor as well as his son by a previous marriage, Richard Taylor.

Mr Cannon said he never had any intention of harming the pair.

The trial continues.