A CONVICTED wife killer has once again declared his innocence and told of the “horror beyond description” that haunts him.Former RAF Honington squadron leader Nicholas Tucker issued a statement from prison yesterday on the eighth anniversary of his wife Carol's death.

A CONVICTED wife killer has once again declared his innocence and told of the “horror beyond description” that haunts him.

Former RAF Honington squadron leader Nicholas Tucker issued a statement from prison yesterday on the eighth anniversary of his wife Carol's death.

Tucker, 52, was convicted at Norwich Crown Court in 1997 of murdering his wife, whose body was discovered after the car in which the couple were driving crashed into the River Lark near Bury St Edmunds.

The police and the Crown Prosecution Service said Tucker had staged the car accident to cover his tracks after strangling his wife.

His trial heard he had begun an affair with Serbian translator Dijana Dudukovic, who was more than 20 years his junior and whom he had met while stationed in Bosnia, and that was given as a motive for Tucker killing his wife.

But throughout his trial and subsequent appeal, Tucker insisted the crash into the River Lark had been an accident caused when he had swerved to avoid a deer.

Tucker, who is serving a life sentence at Gartree Prison in Leicestershire, said in his statement: “To lose your wife, whom you have loved and lived with for 21 years, is a heart-rending experience.

“To do so in an accident, which you yourself feel responsible for, is traumatic. But to be arrested, charged, tried and convicted of having murdered her is a mental and psychological horror beyond description.

“Carol's death was an accident, though I always have and always will feel responsible simply because I was driving the car that night.

“This feeling remains despite the fresh evidence and analysis of the complete facts, but it is clear now that it would have taken a miracle to have avoided some sort of crash.”

Ticker's fiancée, Jenny Peacock, from Thetford, read his statement before a panel of supporters and campaigners.

Tucker went on to accuse the British justice system of failure, claiming he was jailed for life on evidence that did not “support or indicate any crime and was also full of flaws, inaccuracy and uncertainty”.

He added: “On the medical and pathological evidence alone the case should have gone no further.

“All five pathologists who investigated the evidence or reviewed the case have concluded there is no evidence that Carol was killed - a fact acknowledged by the Court of Appeal. I did not kill Carol.”

Despite a failed appeal against his conviction and a refusal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission to grant a second appeal - Miss Peacock was confident a judicial review of the decision would eventually lead to Tucker's freedom.

Although the review has not yet been granted, campaigners were hopeful the support of QC Lord Carlile of Berriew and a leading academic in the field of miscarriages of justice would help their case.