MURDER accused Peter Morgan told Newport Crown Court that he was “under no illusion” that Georgina Symonds had “loved him back” during their relationship.

When asked by his defence council Patrick Harrington QC about the relationship’s intensity, Morgan, 54, of Llanellen Court Farm, Llanellen, near Abergavenny described it as a “funny sort of relationship”.

Speaking on the ninth day of his trial for her murder, a charge he denies, Morgan went on to say that the two had many “shared interests”.

Despite saying during the trial that he had trouble “describing his feelings”, Morgan said: “I loved her, I felt differently about her than anybody else.

“It was a funny sort of relationship, it was never going to be a normal relationship by anyone’s standards. I was under no illusion that she loved me, as soon as the money went she would be gone.

“She loved the lifestyle and what we did.”

Morgan went on to say that Miss Symonds was like a “best friend” to him, and that he had never had “that type” of relationship before.

Earlier in the day, the court heard that Morgan “very much” acknowledged the accuracy of a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome made by expert psychologist Professor Simon Baron-Cohen.

Morgan said he “did not really notice it until the professor was saying what the traits were the other day.”

Asked if he ever thought he was on the autistic spectrum, Morgan replied: “Not really.”

But he added: “People used to say I thought differently to everyone else.”

He cited Professor Baron-Cohen’s reference earlier in the trial to ‘black and white’ thinking as a trait of autism, saying that with himself, “things have to be one way or the other.”

Of Professor Baron-Cohen’s diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism, Morgan told the jury: “My brother (Andrew) said it just fitted me to a tee and explained a lot of things.”

Morgan denies murdering Miss Symonds, his lover, on January 12 this year at Pencoed Castle Bungalow - a property he owned and where she was living.

He is citing diminished responsibility.

The court was told that businessman Morgan experienced a midlife crisis as he approached the age of 50.

“It was coming up to 50 when I realised I would not live forever. I was happy, but it just hit me that nothing lasts forever,” he said, under questioning from Mr Harrington.

The first indication of his midlife crisis came when he bought an old tank, and a fire engine. He subsequently sold the latter, but kept the tank outside his house.

He said he had been faithful to his wife of almost 20 years, Helen, apart from once, when he slept with a prostitute in Amsterdam during a trip to a poultry fair in nearby Utrecht, also in the Netherlands.

But after being shown an escorting website on a friend’s mobile phone, he began in late 2011 to use escorts.

His first meeting with an escort for sex was in Cardiff Bay, an encounter for which he paid £130, and thereafter he saw an escort, though never the same one, “once a month.”

“I liked it because it was more unemotional. You didn’t get attached,” he said.

“I remember the first one, I shook her hand as I left.”

Within six months, his continued use of escorts brought him into contact with the then 21-year-old Georgina Symonds for the first time, “on May 8, 2012, at 2.15pm” in Newport.

By now, Morgan said, his use of escorts had become “routine” but he began to feel that Miss Symonds was different, as he felt he got on with her better, compared to the others.

Until then, he would only see an escort once, but within two weeks of their first encounter, he saw Miss Symonds again - on an escort-client basis - and a third time another two weeks later.

Though he continued to see other escorts, he told the court: “It just happened gradually that I realised she meant more to me than just an escort.”

In August 2012 they met at a windmill Morgan had converted into a holiday let, at Llancayo - she later stayed overnight there, for which Morgan paid her £1,000 - and by the following month he was seeing her twice a week.

Morgan also visited her house - she lived in Tredegar at the time - and it was there that he met her former partner, the father of her daughter, for the first time.

The court was told that Miss Symonds’ partner knew she was an escort, but that he had not been happy when, returning to the house after he forgot his mobile phone, he found Morgan there, as he had not known she was seeing a client.

Morgan said Miss Symonds used to come out to ride his motorbikes and quad bikes, and they spent more and more time together.

By 2013 Morgan said he had “cut back” on seeing Miss Symonds, to perhaps once a week, while seeing other escorts at the same rate.

She was still working as an escort, which Morgan said “didn’t bother me.”

He said however, that Miss Symonds “used to get annoyed about me seeing other escorts.”

“I didn’t stop. I just carried on seeing other escorts. I never really stopped, there would just be lulls,” he said.

Further details of the couple’s financial agreement were discussed, with Morgan saying that he paid Miss Symonds £7,000 a month and saw her five days a week.

He said: “That would cover what she needed, she’d be able to not work. It was a lot of money.“I was happy with that agreement because it made her happy.”

According to Morgan, Miss Symonds wanted to start removing her information from the escort website she had used. Morgan claimed to have told her “not to take it all down”, saying: “I told her to park it up, if we were to split up she could carry on [escorting].”

Morgan told the court that he had a happy childhood, but hated school, particularly Caerleon comprehensive.

After leaving aged 15, he began working on the farm run by his father and uncle, before going to work for his father’s firm Morgan’s of Usk, which manufactured and erected farm buildings.

He got married to Helen in 1992 and after being “pushed” into the office at Morgan’s of Usk - “that involved a lot more teamwork, which I didn’t like” - he set up his own business on a 50:50 basis with his wife.

That business, Morspan Limited, manufactured and erected steel poultry buildings that Morgan designed himself.

It flourished over several years, but it was sold in 2006, and Morgan turned his hand to renovating a derelict windmill in Llancayo, the same one Miss Symonds stayed at with him several years later, as their relationship began to develop.

Proceeding.