THE jealous lover of Kim Fuller was having a secret affair with another woman in the months leading up to the cashier's death. Sean Hilton, who is standing trial at Cambridge Crown Court accused of murdering the mother-of-two, had even promised to set up home with Susan Smith on the day Ms Fuller was killed.

THE jealous lover of Kim Fuller was having a secret affair with another woman in the months leading up to the cashier's death.

Sean Hilton, who is standing trial at Cambridge Crown Court accused of murdering the mother-of-two, had even promised to set up home with Susan Smith on the day Ms Fuller was killed.

Yesterday, Ms Smith, an accountant from Newmarket, told the jury she had never believed for a moment the man she loved had been seeing someone else.

But the court also heard that while Ms Smith and her lover were making plans for the future, Ms Fuller was in fear of her life, and had confided in an acquaintance that she knew Hilton was going to kill her just days before she actually died.

Hilton, 39, started dating Ms Smith in May 2004 after meeting her through the White Swan dating agency - the same organisation that put him in contact with Ms Fuller just three months later.

In the months that followed, Hilton, from Brook Street, Soham, continued to date both women, despite becoming jealous and possessive over Ms Fuller's contact with male friends.

“We were getting on really well and I liked him a lot,” Ms Smith told the court. “He said that he did not want us to be apart, and that we should be together all the time.”

The couple planned to move in together in November 2004 - three months into his other relationship with Ms Fuller - but Hilton changed his mind, telling Ms Smith he did not know if it was what he wanted.

Just before Christmas that year, the couple reconciled their differences, and on January 14 2005, Hilton did move into Ms Smith's home in Newmarket, although he left again two days later without warning.

“He said he loved me,” said Ms Smith. “On January 16, I kissed him goodbye and went to work, but when I returned at around 6pm, every trace of him had disappeared out of the house. I was astounded.”

The on-off relationship between Hilton and Ms Smith continued, and the couple once again planned to move in with each other on March 3 - the day of Ms Fuller's death.

She said: “We discussed our future together, and he seemed happy, but Tuesday (March 1) was the last time that I saw him.”

During his relationship with Ms Fuller, Hilton would often check her mobile phone to see who she had been in contact with, and did not like her going out with friends.

Susan Edwards, Ms Fuller's best friend, said: “He was always on the phone to her, wanting to know where she was, and what she was doing. But Sean was a bit of a mystery, and no one ever knew where he was.”

Virginia Geraghty , a lecturer at West Suffolk College in Bury St Edmunds, spoke to Ms Fuller - who was doing a part-time access course in English History and Sociology - on February 22, the day after Hilton tried to strangle the 34-year-old at their home in Soham.

“We had arranged to have a personal tutorial meeting, but Kim looked visibly pale and when we went into a private room she burst into tears,” said Miss Geraghty, who said she had been aware for some time Ms Fuller was in a “violent and turbulent” relationship.

“I asked her what was wrong, and she said 'I nearly died last night, he strangled me'. She was crying and sobbing, and really choking on her tears.

“Then she just kept repeating, over and over again 'I thought I was going to die, he has promised to kill me, I know he is going to kill me'.”

Hilton denies murdering Ms Fuller, whose body was found near a disused airfield in Langham, Norfolk, on March 6.

The trial continues.