A woman who was found dead next to a ride-on mower was emotionally abusive towards her husband, who is accused of causing her death, a court has been told.

Robert Crawford, 49, is on trial for the alleged murder of his wife Frances on July 29, 2024.

The prosecution alleges Crawford strangled his wife and then staged the scene with the mower to make her death appear a tragic accident.

They further allege he falsified a series of text messages with his wife on the night of her death to cover his tracks.

The jury has heard that Mrs Crawford closely surveilled her husband’s finances and communications and made him take regular polygraph tests as a condition of their reconciliation over his affairs.

Mrs Crawford gave her philandering husband an extensive list of boundaries and conditions to abide by if he wanted to stay in the marriage, the jury was told.

These included regularly submitting to polygraph tests, regular church attendance and receipts for any spending over $30, including fuel and groceries.

She also kept a daily “scoresheet” of their marriage, giving points for praying, expressing gratitude, random hugs, moments of connection and having sex.

In the week leading up to her death, the jury heard Mrs Crawford had rated them five on Thursday, seven on Saturday when they had argued on a trip to Kingscliff and eight on Sunday.

Robert John Crawford has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife, arguing she fell from a mower. Photo: AAP

The court heard Crawford had engaged in a series of infidelities throughout the course of his marriage.

On Tuesday one of the women with whom Crawford had carried out an affair, Emily Renshaw, gave evidence.

She said Crawford had told her his wife was emotionally abusive towards him.

“She would call him a narcissist,” she said.

“He said she would act quite cold and pick fights with him in front of the kids.”

Renshaw told the court that Crawford said he was unhappy and felt trapped, alone and isolated in the marriage.

However, he was reluctant to leave due to family and financial reasons.

“He didn’t want to put his kids through it,” Renshaw said, explaining that the youngest of his three children was still in school.

He also did not want to be exiled from his church community and friends.

Renshaw said after breaking up with Crawford, she received a message from his wife, whom she immediately blocked.

The jury also heard from another woman, Sarah Goodsell, a friend of Crawford’s to whom he confided intimate details about his marriage.

Mrs Crawford also incorrectly suspected her husband of an affair with Goodsell.

The jury was shown messages from Goodsell attempting to encourage Crawford to stand up to his wife’s requirement that he submit to polygraph testing to stay in the marriage.

“I’m like, sure … I can beat those anyway,” Crawford responded.

A friend of Mrs Crawford’s, Elizabeth Calabria, told the jury Frances had confided to her that she had realised her husband was not going to change.

“She said she hoped he would actually fail the polygraph because it was an agreement of the reconciliation,” she said.

“She was just at the point where she’d given up hope.”

Romantic getaway

Frances and Robert Crawford had a disastrous romantic weekend away shortly before Mrs Crawford was found dead in an apparent lawnmower accident, the trial heard.

Jurors heard the couple had only just returned from a weekend in Kingscliff, NSW, in an attempt to heal their marriage.

Tensions exploded at the mention of one of many women it is agreed Crawford had an affair or liaison with.

In a series of messages shown to the jury, Mrs Crawford confronted her husband over his infidelities.

“You attract scum … all those girls to stroke your ego” Mrs Crawford wrote to her husband.

When Crawford said he wanted to help her heal, his wife responded angrily.

“All words,” she said.

“I could see in your eyes that you have no empathy. They are just cold.”

The jury was shown close-up stills from CCTV footage of the middle fingernail of her right hand.

Photos taken of Mrs Crawford’s body showed the fingernail ripped down to the quick.

But her nails appeared manicured over the weekend of July 27 and 28.

The prosecution has alleged Mrs Crawford suffered the injury to her nail while attempting to defend herself.

Barrister Saul Holt pointed to bloodstains on top of a rock wall on the couple’s Upper Lockyer property.

A trail of blood leading from the steering wheel of the mower to the lacerated head of Mrs Crawford was shown to the jury.

Holt said it was evidence Mrs Crawford had been thrown from the mower and crushed, as her husband has said.

He told the jury no blood was found elsewhere on the couple’s property, despite Mrs Crawford sustaining a severe gash to her head.

“That is an incredibly important factor to consider in a trial when claims of staging are being assessed,” he said.

Holt said the trail of blood between the mower and the 49-year-old’s body showed her husband had been able to free her from where she had been pinned, with the steering wheel over her neck.

Text messages showed that at 11.21pm, Mrs Crawford asked her husband, then 46, if he was going to bring the mower back under cover.

The defence contends she later attempted to bring the mower in herself while dressed in her pyjamas.

On Monday, the jury heard the pair had been in and out of counselling and on the verge of a final separation by July 2024.

The jury heard Crawford, now 49, was financially motivated to kill his wife.

He had planned to retire at 50 and their property was conservatively valued at $2 million.

His wife’s life insurance was valued at $860,000 and he was the sole beneficiary in her will, jurors were told.

A costly divorce settlement would have forced Crawford back to work.

The trial continues before Justice Lincoln Crowley.

-with AAP