When a respected vice-admiral - and father of the highest-paid woman FTSE boss - was found dead at the bottom of the stairs, police ruled out foul play. But, writes TOM LEONARD, amid a toxic family row, a court had to decide: did he fall, or was he pushed?

The caller to the emergency services in Cape Cod had an unmistakable British accent. 'My husband seems to have fallen down a flight of stairs,' Lady Alexandra Walmsley told the operator early one morning in August 2022. 'There's blood everywhere.' 

Vice Admiral Sir Robert Walmsley, his arms crossed under his body, was lying dead on the tiled basement floor at the rented house on Pleasant Street, East Dennis, on the picturesque Massachusetts peninsula where he and his second wife had holidayed for the past three summers.

The man who had helped steer British post-Cold War defence policy and the Cambridge crew that won the 1962 Boat Race had apparently lost his footing and crashed down the carpeted stairs.

Sir Robert – who ended an illustrious public career as head of UK defence procurement and who was described in his Times obituary as 'unflappable' – was 81 but sprightly, with no serious medical issues. The previous day, he'd played 18 holes of golf and had planned the same on the day he died.

Former Vice Admiral Sir Robert Walmsley helped steer British post-Cold War defence policy and the Cambridge crew that won the 1962 Boat Race

Emma Walmsley is the £12.7million-a-year boss of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, and thought to be the highest-paid female FTSE 100 chief executive

After tests revealed that alcohol, drugs or any underlying medical condition were unlikely to have caused the fall, the police and coroner in Massachusetts thought he had slipped. Ruling out foul play, they concluded he had died accidentally from head injuries.

But to members of Sir Robert's family back in the UK, that explanation didn't suffice.

It is said that his three grown-up children from his 42-year marriage to first wife Christina – who include Dame Emma Walmsley, the £12.7million-a-year boss of pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, thought to be the highest-paid female FTSE 100 chief executive – have never warmed to the current Lady Walmsley.

An expert on defence, security and nuclear waste, Alexandra was 30 years younger than Sir Robert and has never had children of her own. Relations were unlikely to have been improved by Sir Robert's will which left £100,000 to each of his children, £25,000 to his first wife and the rest to Alexandra, who lives in Putney, south-west London.

Unease about their father's death prompted his son James, a commercial barrister, to hire a UK pathologist who subsequently reported that he couldn't rule out that the fatal fall had been caused by 'a simple shove by a third party'. And in an inquest hearing in the UK, James Walmsley's lawyer raised questions about the accuracy of what Lady Walmsley had told the US authorities.

For her part, Lady Walmsley, who runs a Westminster-based defence and security consultancy and is an associate fellow of the Royal United Services Institute think-tank, testified under oath at a coroner's inquest in west London a month ago. Unusually, a canvas screen was installed in the room so Lady Walmsley and James didn't have to see each other, so poisonous had family relations become. At least one of his siblings followed the proceedings remotely.

Lady Walmsley's lawyer complained of her being compelled to testify and, according to the Wall Street Journal, accused her husband's children of 'deliberately subjecting her to experience an acute cruelty'.

James Walmsley's counsel insisted his client was 'doing absolutely nothing to make allegations or raise the temperature'.

But the temperature in the Walmsley family, the inquest heard, has been running uncomfortably high for years.

Though her stepchildren have never explicitly accused Lady Walmsley of being involved in the death of their father, the controversy has parallels to a celebrated US case in which the novelist Michael Peterson was convicted in 2003 of murdering his second wife after her body was found at the foot of stairs at their home.

Peterson (later freed in a plea deal) claimed his wife must have consumed excessive alcohol and valium. The story was dramatised in the TV series The Staircase starring Colin Firth and Toni Collette.

The story has echoes of that of the novelist Michael Peterson and his wife, which was dramatised in the TV series The Staircase starring Colin Firth and Toni Collette

The Walmsley drama also has the makings of a Hollywood adaptation. High-achieving Dame Emma and James have a sister, Victoria, who is a mental health therapist in London.

Their Scottish-born father was a highly-regarded nuclear submarine engineer who became Chief of Defence Procurement in 1996, responsible for allocating the MoD's annual £6billion budget. He first met Alexandra in 2002 while married to first wife Christina but they didn't divorce until 2009.

Three years earlier, lamp posts and trees near the Fulham home he shared with Christina were mysteriously festooned with pink notices saying he 'has not only cheated on his wife, he has now cheated on his lover'. 

Sir Robert denied all knowledge, saying: 'Absolute madness. I've no idea who put them up. They certainly have nothing to do with me.'

A few months after his acrimonious divorce, he married Alexandra in a small ceremony that his children were reportedly far from happy about.

A lawyer representing Lady Walmsley told the London inquest last month that Sir Robert's son James became estranged from him over his second marriage and didn't invite him to his own wedding or his daughters' christenings.

His 'antipathy' towards his stepmother had deeply upset them, the hearing heard. (James's lawyer rejected the claims.)

During the hearing, Lady Walmsley recounted how she had got up at 5.30am on that fateful morning 19 months earlier to do a Zoom work call and, surprised to find her husband was out of bed, scoured the house. She eventually found his body on the basement floor. Police reported he was wearing only boxer shorts.

The basement contained a washer and dryer; the light on the basement stairs, with the switch located at the top, had been turned on. She couldn't definitively explain to police how her husband ended up there after they had gone to bed at 11pm having dined at a local restaurant. 

He'd had a few drinks but wasn't drunk, she said. She speculated he might have been checking if a dead animal they had smelled was there, or might have been sleepwalking or got confused that he was still in his house in London when he went for a glass of water.

Sir Robert, who suffered incontinence, might even have rushed to the basement laundry after soiling himself, she ventured. (Police found no evidence of any clothes near his body but some soiling of his underwear.)

It is said Dame Emma (pictured left with the Duke of Gloucester at Buckingham Palace in 2019) never warmed to the current Lady Walmsley

Tests revealed a very low alcohol level and no evidence of a stroke or heart attack. His wife had described him as 'fizzing with energy' at the time.

The report by UK pathologist Dr Ashley Fegan-Earl commissioned by James Walmsley and read out at the inquest didn't quibble with the cause of death.

'The head injury is without doubt a result of a fall,' he said, adding: 'But the cause of that fall is a different question.'

Noting that the stairs were carpeted and Sir Robert was barefoot, any friction 'would potentially reduce the potential for a slip', he said.

There was no evidence of the use of a weapon and Sir Robert's only injury other than to his head was an apparent dislocated shoulder. But that didn't necessarily mean he hadn't been pushed, Dr Fegan-Earl stated. 'One always needs to be careful about ruling out a simple shove by a third party as this will not leave a diagnostic mark on the body,' he said in his report.

During 90 minutes of questioning at the hearing, Lady Walmsley was challenged over her account and the theory that her husband simply slipped.

Hadn't he developed the habit from navigating hazardous ship and submarine stairs in his navy days of always using handrails (the basement stairs had one), she was asked. And, why, in the ten to 15 minutes when she came downstairs before her Zoom meeting hadn't she noticed that the usually closed door to the basement was open?

She was also asked why Sir Robert might have bothered using the washing machine to clean a single pair of boxer shorts when he could have used a handbasin upstairs.

'I can't believe I'm being asked this,' Lady Walmsley interrupted, slapping the table. 'It's appalling. He would die of embarrassment to be witnessing this.'

James Walmsley's lawyer, Hugh Davies KC, asked the coroner, Anton van Dellen, not to record the death as accidental or a 'fall' but to refer to Sir Robert as 'being precipitated down the stairs into the basement'.

The coroner had told the London hearing that Sir Robert Walmsley, who was chief of defence procurement at the Ministry of Defence, 'dedicated his life to protecting all of us'

British Royal Navy officer Sir Robert Walmsley studying during his time at the University of Cambridge in 1962

The coroner returned his ruling: the death was 'accidental' but he could not reach any explanation why the former admiral had gone to the basement or why he had 'precipitated' down the stairs.

Lady Walmsley, a dual UK-US national who grew up mostly in London and was educated at St Andrews University, later issued a statement attacking the coroner and her stepchildren.

She said she had been 'subjected to an unpleasant interrogation with questions that were distressing to me and undignified for my late husband', adding: 'I was forced to relive in public the very worst moment of my life.'

She told friends and colleagues on social media site LinkedIn she'd faced 'repeated and vexatious insinuations that his death might have been suspicious and that my evidence was 'disputed' but 'fortunately the coroner has seen sense'. After 'this period of utter hell and misery', she said, 'I can finally start to grieve and begin to rebuild my life'.

Her stepchildren said in a statement: 'The sudden loss of our father, a long way from home, was devastating. The inquest has been an important process through which to try to understand how he came by his tragic death and its conclusion helps us now to move forward.'

They pledged to 'continue to honour our father's memory'.

The coroner had told the London hearing that Sir Robert Walmsley 'dedicated his life to protecting all of us'. Sadly, it wasn't only his body but also his remarkable legacy that took a savage battering when he plunged down those stairs.

Additional Reporting: Cameron Charters