Policeman Martin Forshaw guilty of faking fiancée's death in car crash

Published 23rd Nov 2009

A police officer today pleaded guilty to murdering his fiancée, a fellow police officer, and then faking a fatal car crash.

Martin Forshaw, 27, entered an unexpected change of plea on the day his trial for the killing of WPC Claire Howarth was due to start at Manchester Crown Court.

The jury was expected to hear that Forshaw had attacked his partner as home before driving her BMW into a tree near Bolton and then staging the scene to make it look like a tragic accident. She died in hospital in the early hours of May 7.

Miss Howarth, who had only recently became a full police officer in the Rochdale area, was described by senior officers as a well-respected and popular colleague who had recently received a letter of commendation from a member of the public.

On the day of the crash paramedics were called to the scene in Harwood, near Bolton, at 2.25am. They found Miss Howarth with serious injuries in the driver’s seat. She was cut free from the wreckage but died later in the Royal Bolton Hospital. Forshaw was treated in hospital for minor injuries.

Both Forshaw, of Tottington, Bury, and Miss Howarth were serving with the Cheshire Constabulary.

It was apparent that the car had swerved off the quiet road into the tree, but officers became suspicious that such a mild impact could have caused the woman’s extensive injuries.

The couple lived in a modern £227,000 detached three-bedroom sandstone-brick house in Tottington, near Bury. They had lived there for nine months.

Chief Superintendent John O’Hare, from Greater Manchester Police’s Rochdale division, said that Miss Howarth was a promising officer. He said: “Claire had been handpicked to undertake a challenging role as a community beat manager and she was someone I had identified as an officer with the potential to go far in Greater Manchester Police and make a real difference.

“In November 2008 a member of the public wrote to Greater Manchester Police’s internal newspaper, Brief, to thank Claire for helping her 12-year-old daughter deal with school bullies. The letter praised Claire for being a ‘total credit to your force and we feel privileged to have people like her out there looking after us’.”

Source: ' Times '

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