Former Holmfirth man charged with murdering wife at French chateau

Sep 9 2010 by Sam Casey, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A FORMER Holmfirth man branded a “shyster” over a string of dodgy dealings has been charged with murdering his wife.

Robert Hall allegedly killed 49-year-old Joanne Hall, burned the body and buried the remains in the grounds of their French chateau.

Hall, 55, is charged with aggravated murder after claims he killed her in a drunken fight in Rennes, Brittany.

He was arrested after her badly-burned remains were allegedly discovered in the grounds of their sprawling property.

Catherine Denis, from the prosecutor’s office in Rennes, said the authorities had been alerted by one of the couple’s children.

“There was a drunken argument with his wife, during which she fell,” she said.

The couple used to live on Dunford Road in Holmfirth.

It is believed Hall was involved in a range of questionable business activities and moved to France to escape a string of debts.

There the Halls have been running a holiday business but the standards have been slammed by tourists on websites.

Yesterday people in Holmfirth claimed that Hall:

Was threatened with an injunction to stop him running an illegal market in Holmfirth

Ran a business importing top-of-the-range cars from Europe and illegally changing them from left-hand drives to right-hand drives

Took hundreds of pounds worth of property from a Holmfirth hardware shop without paying for it

Borrowed hundreds of thousands of pounds to develop a bogus building process.

Hall used to live in a large detached house opposite the former Crag Rats building on Dunford Road.

Richard Skelton, who lives there now, bought the property from the bank after it was repossessed after Hall got into financial difficulties.

It is thought Hall had angered several tradesmen by ordering work on the house that was never paid for.

Mr Skelton said: “When my wife was taking a look round for the first time she opened up a wardrobe and there was a shotgun, which was a bit odd.

“There are plenty of stories about him.”

Hall got into hot water in 1993 when he leased part of the former G W Castle garage in Hollowgate, Holmfirth.

He was renting the space for a Santa’s grotto, but was locked out after breaching the agreement by setting up a small market selling gifts.

A man who was involved in the matter at the time, who did not want to be named, said: “He came back a couple of days later with a baseball bat, smashed his way in and threatened a security guard.”