THE children of a York millionnairess killed by her husband heard him bludgeon their mother to death, a court was told.

Joanna Brown’s nine-year-old daughter told police that she and her brother, 11, had overheard their parents hitting each other and heard “banging” as Robert Brown struck the blows that killed Joanna, 46, formerly of Badger Hill.

The girl said she then watched her father bundle her mother’s body into the family car.

The attack last October took place following lengthy rows over divorce proceedings and a contested pre-nuptial agreement which Brown allegedly believed to have been a “stitch-up”, Reading Crown Court was told.

Brown, of North Street, Winkfield, Berkshire, has admitted killing Joanna, but denied her murder and also denied obstructing a coroner from holding an inquest.

Joanna was the daughter of a well-known York builder and property developer, Christopher Simpson, who lived in Badger Hill and is understood to have part-owned Sawdon and Simpson Ltd, based at Millfield Lane.

Joanna is believed to have attended the junior school of the former York College for Girls, in the “Red House” building near the Minster, but following the sale of the firm, went with her family to the Isle of Man.

The court was told that her family hired a bodyguard to protect her after her husband attacked her with a kitchen knife.

Her mother, Diana Parkes, pausing to fight back tears, said family members had hated Brown from the outset, while Joanna’s father had warned the union would “end in trouble”, and even encouraged her to sign a pre-nuptial agreement for this reason, she said.

The jury heard that, after convincing himself his wife had deliberately concealed the extent of her finances, the British Airways pilot attacked her last year, before placing her in a grave in a remote spot on the Queen’s Windsor estate where she might never have been found.

Prosecutor Graham Reeds QC said the pre-nuptial agreement had caused Brown “continuing resentment”.

By 2007, their relationship had fallen apart and “divorce proceedings were, by any standard, acrimonious and bitterly contested”, he said. “First there were disputes over children and then over money.”

In one email, read out in court, Brown referred to his wife as a “self-righteous spoilt brat who has 2 have it all yr own way”.

He warned: “Soon your world will fall apart. What goes around comes around.”

Mr Reeds said Brown drove to a property where his wife was living in Ascot to drop off their children following the half-term break, taking with him a hammer or mallet.

On arrival, he began to hit Mrs Brown repeatedly around the head until she collapsed, he alleged.

He then bundled the children into his Volvo 4x4, wrapped Mrs Brown’s body in plastic sheeting, placed a bin-liner or plastic bag over her head to “avoid leaving bloodstains” and dumped her in the boot of his car.

He later drove the body to Nightingale Corner, a piece of woodland in Windsor Great Park where he had already set down a makeshift coffin, and dumped the body in the grave, jurors heard.

The trial continues.