A woman and her nephew are starting life sentences for the murder of her husband, George. Neil Hunter looks at what drove Christina Button to hatch a plot to kill.

SCHEMING Christina Button was a woman driven by greed and her desperate need of money.

She was driven to steal from an employer when she and hardworking husband George encountered cash problems.

And she was driven to kill her husband when it became clear one of the few ways to solve the financial mess was his life insurance policies.

The Buttons lived in the biggest house in their street, St Mary's Drive, in West Rainton, near Durham City. It had four bedrooms and two garages.

They had bought it when the homes were built in the late 1990s, for about £100,000, but soon struggled to meet the financial demands of such a property and a young family as well as Button's penchant for designer clothes and holidays.

Mr Button, 53, earned a modest wage as an electrician for Sunderland City Council, but neighbours said his 32-year-old wife drifted from one job to another, and at one point had 15 store cards.

She was a lavish spender who, when her husband's own inheritance money ran out, stole almost £12,000 from a pawnbrokers, in Sunderland, where she worked as a bookkeeper.

Button was not prosecuted and agreed to pay the money back, but as the bills mounted, the couple remortgaged their house and were left with debts of £197,000.

Mr Button tried to help by taking on a second job as a take-away delivery driver, and, at the beginning of this year, agreed to take in a lodger, his wife's 20-year-old nephew Simon Tannahill.

A move he thought might lead to a fresh start for his family sparked a sinister plot to have him killed for his £450,000 life insurance policies.

But Button and Tannahill's plan had several vital flaws - he had earlier asked a relative for help to hire a hitman, while she spoke to neighbours about becoming a rich widow should anything happen to her husband.

Button appeared every bit the devastated wife as her husband fought for his life in hospital, sobbing at his bedside and attracting the sympathy of her neighbours.

Two days after the attack on March 3, Mr Button, who had never regained consciousness, died.

The sympathy from neighbours continued, but a week later Button and Tannahill were arrested after police were able to piece together crucial evidence.

Traces of Mr Button's blood were found in Tannahill's car. He had come home early from work on the day of the attack, and Button - in an attempt to establish an alibi - had taken their daughter Laura, seven, to Brownies, something she had not done for four months.

One neighbour said: "The financial trouble they were in was clear as George seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. The poor man, to make ends meet, had to deliver pizzas after doing his day shift with the council because they were in so much debt.

"She continued to spend money on her credit cards and was definitely the boss of the relationship. She was forever telling people so.

"Then the nephew moved in to help with the payments and he had only been there two months or so when this happened."

Another neighbour said: "Christina was a real busybody who knew everyone's business, but it seems her desire for gossip could have been her downfall.

"In the build-up to March 3, she had asked one woman, whose two husbands or partners had died, how much she inherited from their deaths.

"And she is supposed to have told another neighbour 'I will be a very rich widow if anything happens to George'.

"We were all astonished when Christina was arrested, but when all these things are put together, the evidence speaks for itself."