CHEATING husband who bludgeoned his wife to death at their home is still protesting his innocence more than seven years after the killing.

But Jonathan David Palmer, aged 59, of Wadborough, near Pershore, has failed to convince Appeal Court judges that police got the wrong man.

Palmer was jailed for life at Worcester Crown Court in September 2010 after jurors convicted him of murdering his wife, Melinda.

Prosecutors claimed Palmer battered the 57-year-old to death at their home in December 2009 - “murdering her in an unplanned moment of crisis”.

He was carrying on an affair with another woman at the time, London’s Appeal Court heard.

Palmer denied the killing, insisting he had returned home to discover his house ransacked by burglars and his wife left for dead.

But he was accused of bludgeoning her with an unknown blunt object and dragging her body from the scene

His account about the burglary was entirely fake, prosecutors said.

Palmer challenged the “safety” of his conviction at the appeal court.

The killer, formerly of Crabbe Lane, said there was no hard evidence against him and that the prosecution case was “circumstantial”.

He admitted carrying on an affair but denied it had motivated him to kill his wife, insisting that he always had an “affectionate relationship” with her.

He claimed to have had “no opportunity” to commit the crime and said he could produce fresh evidence suggesting that someone else was responsible.

But Mr Justice Warby, sitting with Lady Justice Sharp and Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, rejected his complaints.

The “fresh” material was in fact available to Palmer at the time of the trial, said the judge, and there was “ample evidence” of his own guilt.

“These grounds are bereft of arguable merit,” the judge concluded, refusing permission to appeal.