Bond actor 'cut wife's throat'

A former actor in James Bond films cut his wife's throat and left her body in a lock-up garage two days before a court custody battle over their three children, the Old Bailey heard today.

Chamlong Allen told friends that her husband Irvin had beaten her up in the past and she was thinking of returning to her native Thailand, Dorian Lovell-Pank QC told the jury.

She had left the family home, first staying with another actor who noticed her face was puffy and bruised. She told him she had been slapped about by her husband, the prosecution alleged.

Mr Lovall-Pank said: "In the months before she was murdered, relations between her and her husband deteriorated badly. Divorce proceedings had started, as had a battle over the custody of their three daughters.

"There was a custody hearing due to take place two days after she was murdered. That was simmering in the background."

Allen, 71, from Ladbroke Grove, west London, who had parts in On Her Majesty's Secret Service and The Spy Who Loved Me, denies murder on April 27 last year.