A WOMAN accused of murdering her love rival's neighbour told police she had turned up at his new girlfriend's house in a Halloween outfit in order to warn her that he had raped her, a court was told.

In police interviews with Heather Stephenson-Snell conducted the day after the fatal shooting of Robert Wilkie outside his home in Holland Street, Radcliffe the 46-year-old psychotherapist claimed she had gone in disguise because she feared Diane Lomax would not let her in if she knew who she was.

Transcripts of the interviews were read to the jury at Manchester Crown Court where Stephenson-Snell, of Crombie Avenue, York, stands accused of the murder of 43-year-old former army commando Mr Wilkie and the attempted murder of Ms Lomax. She denies both charges.

David Wilkie died immediately after he had been shot at point blank range after he had gone out into Holland Street wearing just his boxer shorts to protest about a loud banging on his neighbour's door.

During a brief struggle a sawn-off shotgun was fired and Mr Wilkie was shot fatally in the stomach.

Yesterday the court heard that in an interview with Detective Sergeant Andrew Meeks, Stephenson-Snell told how she sent Adrian Sinclair, sexually explicit letters from the USA, where she had been attending a course in screenwriting.

She denied they had had a sexual relationship, as Mr Sinclair had claimed to the court, and said she sent the letters as a favour to Mr Sinclair because he was receiving unwanted attention from a gay man.

She told how on her return from America Mr Sinclair met her at the airport and took her home. But she alleged Mr Sinclair then put something into a beer she had been drinking and that night raped her in her caravan.

Mr Sinclair returned to Radcliffe where he had started a relationship with Ms Lomax and Stephenson-Snell said he then started bombarding her with phone calls and making threats. She said she believed he had kidnapped her Rottweiler dog, Sammy, who had gone missing while she was away in America. Stephenson-Snell, leader of an all-girl Hell's Angel biker gang, did not report the alleged rape to police and after her arrest for murder refused to give detectives details of the counselling centre she said she had attended in order to try and get over the ordeal.

Later, on November 2, last year, the day after Mr Wilkie's death Stephenson-Snell gave detectives explanations for her actions on Halloween night when she travelled to Radcliffe and knocked on Ms Lomax's door at 12.40am.

She told police she had not felt up to talking about her rape a year earlier but decided she wanted to start 2004 afresh after telling Ms Lomax about it.

"I think one of my counsellors said it would be therapeutic to do it that way," she told them.

She made a ghost outfit out of a white sheet, cutting a hole in it for her head, bought a Scream mask from a fancy goods shop and a wig from a fancy dress shop to complete her disguise.

Proceeding