THE woman who fell 74ft to her death from Carfax Tower was thousands of pounds in debt, her grieving husband revealed last night.

Patricia Stoute, 61, of Dunnock Way, in Blackbird Leys, died after falling from the tower, narrowly missing shocked shoppers on Monday.

Yesterday, Kenneth Churchill-Stoute paid tribute to the woman he married a year ago and planned to spend the rest of his life with. But he also said he feared her debts of £24,000 may have been the cause of the tragedy.

The 69-year-old said his wife had bank loans and credit and store card debts, and the couple were struggling to pay them off.

Mr Churchill-Stoute said: “She really was a marvellous woman. I was proud to call her my wife. She was getting deeper in debt and I believe she really couldn’t cope any more.

“It’s very sad. I wish she had told me. We could have sorted something out.

“I’m still in shock, we all get in debt sometimes. All this time she must have had this thing building up.

“We were paying it back, but she was paying through the nose. It was a losing battle.”

Mrs Stoute was born Patricia Phipps and grew up in Barton. Her first husband George Bedding died three years ago from cancer. The couple had no children.

She worked at various branches of Boots over the past 20 years and more recently worked part-time at the branch in the Cowley Retail Park.

The couple met about four years ago when Mr Churchill-Stoute carried out repairs at her home in Gidley Way, in Horspath.

They married at Wheatley Register Office last summer. Mr Churchill-Stoute, who has nine children from two previous marriages, said his wife confessed to him about her debts shortly before her death and the couple had sought help from a recovery agency a week before she died.

She was paying back £400 a month to cover a loan from Barclay’s Bank.

Mr Churchill-Stoute believes his wife built up much of the debt buying items for the couple’s marital home.

He said: “I told her not to go spending like that. There was nothing I needed but I think she was trying to please me.

“She said: ‘I’ve let you down’ but I said don’t worry about it.” His wife was also heavily overdrawn from before their marriage, he added. He said his wife left to go shopping on the day she died and gave no indication that she was upset.

He added: “It was an ordinary morning. She gave me a kiss goodbye and I said I’ll see you later. I waited and waited and she never came home. Then the doorbell rang and there was a policeman at my door.

“She was a wonderful person. I was on my own for ten years and she was the best thing that ever happened to me. “I thought my luck had changed and we would spend the rest of our lives together. “I’m going to miss her. There’s no one like her in the world.”