Wealthy landowner to be sentenced for wife's murder
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A wealthy Gloucestershire landowner is to be sentenced for the murder of his estranged wife, whose body has never been found.
Retired teacher Kate Prout, 55, vanished from the £1.2 million farm she shared with her husband Adrian Prout during acrimonious divorce proceedings.
Prout, 47, who owns a successful pipe-laying business and runs a commercial pheasant shoot, was found guilty of her murder on Friday. Mr Justice Nigel Davis will sentence Prout, from Redmarley, at Bristol Crown Court, after warning him he faces mandatory life imprisonment.
Following the conviction, Mrs Prout's emotional family urged Prout to reveal where her body was hidden and end their anguish.
Her brother Richard Wakefield, 59, from Lypiatt, Gloucestershire, said: "Nothing will bring Kate back to us, but we are pleased that justice has been done.
"It is a big relief that the trial has ended with this verdict and this will go some way towards allowing us to move forward.
"We would, however, appeal to Adrian to tell us what happened to Kate and where she is because we would like to lay her to rest and say our goodbyes."
Prout, who has become a father with his fiancee, Debbie Garlick, since Mrs Prout's disappearance, is thought to have strangled her and then used his expertise as a professional pipe layer to bury her body.
The couple were living in Redhill Farm, in Redmarley, a 276-acre property purchased in 2004 for £820,000 and later valued at £1.2 million.