A TOP hospital scientist injected a wine box with ethanol to make it look like his wife was an alcoholic who drank herself to death, a court was told.

Andrew Booth, 44, spiked the drinks of his estranged wife Lorraine Booth, 50, for almost a year before anaesthetising her and smothering her with a cushion, prosecutors claim.

He told police that his wife had passed out face-down on the sofa and suffocated as their two children slept upstairs at the family home on Tankersley Lane, Hoyland Common.

Lorraine, who worked as a barmaid at the Hare and Hounds pub for 14 years, told friends she thought Booth was tampering with her drinks.

Colleague Ian Strike said ‘Loz’ had found a rucksack containing syringes and pure alcohol, ethanol, in the house. Booth told her the substance was antifreeze and the bag was never seen again.

Lorraine told Ian she had “proof” her husband was trying to poison her when she marked an open wine bottle and found the level had increased hours later.

She told him she had switched to wine boxes in September 2006 but found puncture marks in the bag when she opened a soggy box.

Giving evidence, Ian said he wanted Lorraine to go to police but she feared they would not believe her.

He confronted Booth that Christmas and was asked whether he knew Lorraine was an alcoholic.

Ian said: “I said ‘she's not and I know what you're doing to her’. He said very, very smugly, ‘oh Loz what have you been telling people’.”

Yesterday, Booth, who was head of biomedical science at Doncaster Royal Infirmary, quietly wept as he heard colleagues give evidence about the couple's impending divorce.

Senior biomedical scientist Dr Susan Antons-Jones had several conversations with Booth about his financial concerns in which he said that he did not expect Lorraine to live much longer.

She said: “He kept telling me that she didn't have long to live, she wouldn't last long and that when it came to settling up the money there was no point in giving her it all because she was going to die.

“He said she would either drink the money away or die, so his next option was to offer the money in two portions. She would die and wouldn't need the second.”

Dr Antons-Jones told the court Booth even considered staying with Lorraine until she died so he did not have to pay the £60,000 settlement.

Another head biomedical scientist said Booth had dreamt he killed Lorraine in the days after her death.

Booth visited Dr David Northcliffe at his home on Wednesday July 18 looking dazed and confused.

He stayed for a coffee and told Dr Northcliffe and his wife that he had been having nightmares about Lorraine’s death.

Linda Northcliffe said: “He said he knew there were a lot of rumours going round about him, that he had killed her and poisoned her.

“He said he was getting so confused about what was going round he wondered if he had done it.

“He said do you think it’s possible that someone could do something and wake up later and wonder what they had done?”

The couple believed the sleeping pills he was allegedly prescribed were to blame for his confusion.

Appearing at Sheffield Crown Court, Booth denies murdering Lorraine on the evening of July 11 last year.

He told ambulance staff he found his inebriated wife face down on the settee when he went to get a glass of water at around 12.30pm on July 12.

Police did not treat the death as suspicious until her family raised concerns and a second post-mortem found she died from suffocation. Traces of the anaesthetic Enflurane, allegedly stolen from a store room at work, were discovered in her blood and urine.

The trial continues.