THE jury is expected to start considering its verdict today (Thursday) in the Coniston Lady in the Lake trial.

This week the defence presented their case that Carol Park could have been murdered by the same man who killed her sister, Christine Price, in 1969.

This suggestion was put to the jury by Gordon Park’s lawyer, Mr Andrew Edis QC, in his closing speech at Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday. John Rapson murdered Christine Price seven years before Carol Park disappeared.

The couple’s child Vanessa was brought up by Gordon and Carol Park following Christine’s death.

Mr Edis outlined Rapson’s violent profile, his conviction for sexual offences and his predilection for bondage.

Mr Edis said it could have been possible Rapson was in the Barrow area on July 17, 1976, when Gordon Park took his children to Blackpool and Carol remained at the family home, Bluestones, in Leece.

When Park returned, his wife had disappeared, he said.

Mr Edis said: “He said he didn’t have access to a car but there’s no evidence whether that’s right or wrong. Suppose he called around to see her in a Beetle. (A VW Beetle was seen outside the Park home around the time of Carol’s disappearance).

“Now if that might have happened, it’s difficult to know how, Rapson could have ended up fitting the bill and where he would have taken her to kill her. It’s difficult to know where all that fits in. But remember that what we are putting before you are other pieces of evidence which show other possible exercises in relation to the killing of Carol Park. Describing the way Rapson murdered Christine, Mr Edis said: “He tied her hands behind her back with string, bit her breasts, and killed her. Rapson confessed to the murder to police.”

Mr Edis said: “John Rapson was undoubtedly a very nasty piece of work indeed. He is Vanessa’s natural father. He is a person who used violence against women. He murdered Vanessa’s mother.”

He also said Rapson, a former shipyard worker, knew how to tie knots.

The jury have been shown many different types of knots.

Mr Edis described how Rapson used bondage as part of his love making.

He said: “You may legitimately be interested in the extraordinary coincidence that the Price sisters, Christine and Carol, have both been murdered, apparently by different men.

“Thirty years later, how can we be sure it wasn’t by the same man? Might it have been?”

Gordon Park, 61, of Norland Avenue, Barrow, denies murder.