A FORMER DJ accused of strangling his wife so that he would not have to share his £400,000 Lottery winnings with her threatened she would not get a penny if she divorced him, a court heard.

Daughter Catherine O'Leary told Liverpool Crown Court: "He said if she left him she wouldn't get a penny.

"He said he would make sure of that and even said he would declare himself bankrupt."

Michael O'Leary, 54, of Rokeden, Newton-le-Willows, denies murdering Michelle O'Leary, who worked as a rail co-ordinator fro Fraser Eagle travel agency in Accrington.

O'Leary has admitted causing her death but denies committing a crime and claims he acted in self defence following an argument.

Questioned by John Benson, QC, for O'Leary, the 20-year-old student said her mother never discussed with her whether her father had won the Lottery, either because she did not know or because she had decided not to tell her.

She agreed he had bought her a car and a replacement after that was sold on, that there had been family holidays including one to America, that O'Leary paid off her mother's Platinum credit card bills and he had allowed her mother to use his business BMW as her own after the Frontera he bought her was sold.

Catherine said she was not aware that her father had not had to work particularly hard at his television aerial installation business.

She said she understood that three or four weeks before she died her mother went to see a solicitor because she was going to divorce O'Leary.

"He knew from about December 2000. She had not plucked up the courage to see a solicitor," she said.

(Proceeding)