A PROSECUTION lawyer has called for Robert Lund to be jailed for 18 years for the murder of his wife.

Closing the case against Lund, state prosecutor Danielle Drouy-Ayral described him as the very image of cynicism.

And she said that he was so cynical that only days after his wife went missing he was already talking about funeral arrangements and cashing in her life insurance.

Cynical enough to take two Lancashire Telegraph journalists to the lake, she said, and carry out the "grotesque pantomime" of re-enacting the so-called accident.

"Every four days in France, a woman dies at the hands of her husband," she said.

"Evelyn Wilkinson (Mrs Lund's maiden name) did not die in an accident. She died at her husband's hand."

Her family's lawyer told the court today that it was "impossible" that Evelyn Lund died as a result of an accident.

Her husband, Robert Lund, 55, formerly of Winter Hill, Darwen, is on trial for her murder.

Evelyn's body was found at the bottom of a lake near the home that she shared with Lund in the south of France.

Lund is accused of murdering the 52-year-old, who grew up in Rossendale, in 1999 for her life insurance and trying to disguise the crime as an accident.

Herve Renier, lawyer for the victim's three daughters, told the jury that Mrs Lund's family has suffered for eight years because of Lund's lies.

He said: "Patricia, Elizabeth and Victoria came here hoping for an explanation of how Robert Lund killed their mother, but instead the only thing we can be sure of is his guilt.

"He proposed the idea of an accident, but expert witnesses have shown that this was medically and technically impossible."

He said the only other option was murder, and Lund was the murderer.

Lund has always maintained that he played no part in his wife's death, and claims that she drove into the lake by accident during a storm.

The jury was sent out to consider its verdict at 3.10pm.