EUNICE Balcombe and her Latvian boyfriend exchanged more than 400 text messages between September and November a jury at the murder trial of Peter Balcombe was told today.

In admitted evidence the mobile phone account of Mrs Balcombe and her Latvian friend Vladimir Platach, 21, the court heard that between September and November he sent her 279 text messages as well as phone calls.

Mrs Balcombe sent him 131 messages and phoned him on 25 occasions.

Extracts read out in court included: Mr Platach: "I miss you and want you in my bed, I would cuddle you all night."

Mrs Balcombe: "I miss you with a passion."

Mr Platach: "I just want to look at you all day."

"I am dreaming of you."

Mrs Balcombe: "Sweet dreams, going to sleep, will dream of you."

Balcombe, 47, has denied murdering his Kenyan born wife Eunice, 40, on December 21 last year.

Today the jury was told by Nigel Pascoe QC, defending, that the right verdict, having heard all the evidence, would be not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.

The last witness to give evidence at the trial in Bristol was close friend Shirley Britten, who said she had known Balcombe for 30 years.

Miss Britten said when Balcombe married Eunice he asked her to go to the house and introduce herself.

The witness said she became friendly with Mrs Balcombe and, as she prepared to go to university on a midwifery course, Eunice Balcombe asked her to help look after some of the people she cared for.

Miss Britten said: "She told me she intended to train as a midwife and get all the qualifications she needed and then she was going to America with the children.

"In her words she said and he ain't coming'."

She said in the last few months before Mrs Balcombe's death her husband had changed a lot.

She said he appeared quite down', had given up smoking, gone one a diet and attended marriage guidance sessions.

Asked to describe Mr and Mrs Balcombe as parents, Miss Britten said: "I couldn't fault them as parents. They idolised those children."

Last week the court heard from Mr Platach that he and Mrs Balcombe met on a number of occasions where they had kissed and fondled, but did not have full sex.

In another statement, PC Robert Hope said he collected a suitcase Balcombe had left with a friend after killing his wife. In the case were some albums of photographs of the children, Balcombe's passport and one for the youngest child, Mitchell.

Prosecuting counsel Neil Ford in his summing up told the jury: "The issue for you is whether he is guilty of murder or alternatively manslaughter because he did not intend to kill her or cause her really serious harm."

Mr Ford said he believed the prosecution had proved that Balcombe not only murdered his wife, he had told his daughter from his first marriage, Christine, and his step daughter Mumbi that he was going to kill his wife.

Mr Ford said: "Peter Balcombe is by nature a selfish and arrogant man who has always wanted his own way in relationships."

He said Balcombe's second wife Elizabeth had told the court how he slapped and punched her and on one occasion knocked her to the ground and tried to strangle her.

"Elizabeth Balcombe thought she was going to die," said Mr Ford, adding that Balcombe only let go of her when she grabbed a vase.

"He inflicted serious injury on Elizabeth Balcombe, and it may be he might have done worse," said Mr Ford.

The prosecutor said: "We say he was a deeply selfish man who expected the comfort of a home life but he would cheat, drink, gamble and in temper he would resort to violence."

He told the jury: "You can see what type of man he was and the kind of man he has always been.

"It was potent fact that Peter Balcombe was considering killing his wife and making it look like an accident.

"And what did he do next morning? He kills his wife and tells the police that effectively it was an accident."

Mr Pascoe told the jury that evidence for Balcombe using violence in the past was not evidence he had killed his wife.

He asked the jury to take great credence of the evidence of pathologist Dr Basil Purvue who told the court that post mortem revealed no evidence of severe force being applied to Mrs Balcombe's neck.

"This man must have, in his own way, loved and cared for his wife in the period leading up to her death," said Mr Pascoe "This is a most dreadful human tragedy set against the background of a man who has behaved so badly," Mr Pascoe said.

The defence QC asked the jury to consider the issue of provocation and the sexual taunt made by Mrs Balcombe before her husband put his hands around her neck.

From Mumbi's diary extracts read to the court said Mr Pascoe there was evidence of happy events in family life.

Referring to the relationship between Eunice Balcombe and the Latvian, Mr Pascoe told the jury: "You will accept the probability that they would have ended up sleeping together."