I was bodyguard to woman accused of murdering Neil Heywood (From Bournemouth Echo)

I was bodyguard to woman accused of murdering Neil Heywood

2:00pm Wednesday 13th June 2012 in News By Arron Hendy

THE bodyguard of a Chinese politician’s wife has lifted the lid on her time in Bournemouth with the British businessman she is accused of murdering.

Michael Wright worked at Keystone House, close to the BIC, when he met Neil Heywood and a woman he believed to be his girlfriend, Gu Kailai.

Mrs Gu now stands accused of Mr Heywood’s murder and the pair’s links have been traced back to the building in Exeter Road, with the world’s media following the controversy.

Now Mr Wright has spoken exclusively to the Daily Echo about the 24-hour security he and two other bodyguards provided at the penthouse flat with tales of a gun, unwanted Chinese visitors and mysterious boxes of unknown goods.

“I thought they were a couple as they lived together,” he said.

“She was a lovely lady and very attractive but very nervous.”

Mr Wright became her bodyguard after telling them about a gun he had found behind the building before she had lived there.

“I told them I had found a gun before and it made them all paranoid and he then employed me as a minder to look after her,” he said.

“She didn’t like anybody going in and up the stairs so we would check who was at the door.

“And it did get a bit hairy a couple of times.”

Among the visitors were three Chinese men whom Mrs Gu refused to speak to and her bodyguards removed them from the property.

After moving in back in 2001 she asked Mr Wright to put bamboo up around the roof garden terrace so nobody could see in, he said.

“In an end room there were all these packages that we were asked to move to someone staying at the Aaron Diplomat Hotel in nearby Westcliff,” he said.

It has been alleged that Mrs Gu bought a balloon through a previous operator of the Bournemouth viewing balloon in the Lower Gardens, for it to be sent to China.

It was reported that Mrs Gu tried to pay extra money for equipment to move cash to the UK to pay for her son Bo Guagua’s private education at a Bournemouth language school and then at Harrow. Mr Wright remembers her son being there.

Mrs Gu moved out and Mr Wright’s work for her stopped when developer Philip Oram bought Keystone House and asked for it to be vacated before the purchase went through in 2003.