AN East Lancashire man held by police in France for the alleged murder of his wife is undergoing "psychological torture" waiting for the trial next year, a family friend claims.

Robert Lund, a former Blackburn Council officer, was arrested in November, 2004, after the body of his wife, former Darwen woman Evelyn, 52, was found in her car in a lake in 2001 close to their home near Montpellier.

He has always denied having anything to do with the death, and in April this year refused food for a week in protest at what he called overcrowding of his cell.

Recently Evelyn's body was flown back to England for an inquest and funeral to take place, but Mr Lund's friends have claimed he was not told her body had been moved, and the financial burden of supporting him in prison is becoming difficult.

Lily Heijde, a neighbour who has been leading a support group in his home village of La Veaute, claimed Lund had told her: "It is a psychological torture, I'm sick, I see a doctor and psychiatrist regularly and this has to last one year more."

Evelyn was originally from Rawtenstall and her first husband was a Burnley bank manager.

She disappeared in December, 1999, and was reported as a missing person by her husband.

The couple had moved to France from their home in Winter Hill, Darwen, in 1996, two years after marrying.

Her body was only discovered when drought lowered the lake's water level.

Evelyn still has family in Blackburn - her daughter, Patricia Kay, lives in Franklin Street.

Robert Lund has a brother, Neville, who lives in Rochdale.

As a foreign national, Lund has to pay for furniture, toiletries, a TV and his breakfast every day.

Lily said: "If we add everything - lawyers, Robert's furniture, all the travels of his brother, visits of friends, meetings with lawyers, phone calls, photocopies etc - at the end of this year we will approach the amount of 20,000 Euros (about £13,000)."

She said Lund had told her he was innocent."

Neville said: "He is under-going psychiatric treatment for depression and is really struggling.

"We have been told it could be next autumn before he faces trial.

"That will be three years after he was first arrested. The delays have been unbearable for him."