AN estranged wife and her younger lover have turned on each other in the witness box at the Old Bailey, and blamed each other for killing the woman's husband.

Mother-of-three Maria Boyne, aged 30, and her lover, warehouseman Gary McGinley, aged 24, both deny murdering television engineer Graham Boyne, 41, at the family home in Parkside Avenue, Barnehurst, on April 24 last year.

Mr Boyne was found dead on his bed by his father, after suffering 27 stab wounds.

The prosecution claims after Boyne became pregnant with McGinley's child, the couple plotted to kill Mr Boyne so that his wife would inherit the Barnehurst house, where her husband was living with the couple's two children.

McGinley, of Franklin Road, Bexleyheath, told the court he had turned up at the Boynes' home to find Boyne with blood all over her hands.

McGinley said Boyne had rung him in the early hours of April 24, and asked him to pick her up from outside the Parkside Avenue house.

He told the court: "Maria was upset and crying.

"She said she killed Graham.

"She looked in a terrible state. She was crying and she seemed in a bad way."

McGinley said at first, he had not believed what she had told him.

He added: "Then I saw blood on her hands.

"I went into the house and she was screaming 'What have I done'?"

McGinley said when he went in, he saw Mr Boyne lying on the bloodstained bed.

He said: "I thought he was dead.

"I said to Maria 'What have you done'? Maria said she was going to kill herself.

"She said she did it for us. It made me feel guilty."

Mc Ginley said he told Boyne to call the police and an ambulance but she said no.

He told the court he had loved Boyne at the time of the murder and had wanted to protect her.

But when Boyne gave her evidence, she claimed it was McGinley who had stabbed her husband.

On the day before the murder, she said she had told McGinley she was going back to her husband, despite being several months pregnant with McGinley's child.

Boyne said she and her husband had gone to bed, but she denied plying Mr Boyne, who had alcohol problems, with drink, or drugging him.

She said McGinley had phoned her twice in the early hours of the morning from a phonebox.

When she heard the second call, she said she put on some clothes and went downstairs where she had left her mobile phone and rang McGinley to see what he wanted.

She said: "He told me he was outside and to let him in."

Boyne said when she opened the door McGinley had a knife tucked in the waistband of his trousers "like a carving knife in a black leather case".

She claimed McGinley had the knife pointing towards her and had said "You know why I'm doing this", and told her to be quiet.

She said she was scared but added: "It didn't cross my mind he would use the knife."

Boyne claimed McGinley went upstairs and then she heard someone shout from the bedroom "help me" and then a scream of pain and she ran out of the house. She said McGinley followed her in a car and stopped her from calling the police.

The pair drove to McGinley's home where he changed his clothes, then back to the Barnehurst house where they went inside.

At some point they took Mr Boyne's bloody neck chain.

The couple then drove to Southend, stopping off at the Morrison's car park in Erith, where Boyne claims McGinley suggested dropping the knife into the River Thames at the Erith pier.

Officers from the Marine Support Unit of the Met Police's Thames division recovered a knife following a two-day fingertip search of the mudflats by the pier, at the weekend.

When shown photographs of the recovered knife, Boyne said it could have been the murder weapon.

The couple cleaned Mr Boyne's chain of blood and pawned it in Southend for £220 spending some of the cash on a bed-and-breakfast and shopping.

Asked if her behaviour might be seen as "a little strange", Boyne replied: "I was told to try and act normal, so no one would get suspicious."

After spending the night in Southend, the couple drove back to London the next day.

She said she had wanted to go to Mr Boyne's parents' home but they were not in, so she rang her sister and told her Mr Boyne was dead.

Boyne said her sister told her she already knew and advised Boyne to go to the police.

The court heard that when she was first questioned by the police, she made no mention of McGinley.

She said: "I was protecting Gary because he was the father of my unborn baby and I felt scared."

The trial continues.