Adrian Basham claims he did not kill Samantha Fraser

Eight months after being found guilty of murdering his estranged wife at her Cowes home, Adrian Basham has made a shocking declaration.

The estranged husband of slain Phillip Island mum Samantha Fraser says he did not kill her as he fights to avoid life imprisonment over the brutal murder.

Eight months after a jury found Adrian Basham guilty of murdering the mother of three, he returned to Victoria’s Supreme Court on Friday continuing to declare his innocence.

“Mr Basham maintains his innocence,” defence barrister Dermot Dann, KC, told the court.

Mr Dann said this limited his submissions to the evidence the jury found him guilty on.

Basham was seen on CCTV trying to disguise his appearance with a hood as he lurked around Ms Fraser’s Cowes home, waiting for her to return on July 23, 2018.

Samantha Fraser was murdered at her Cowes home in 2018.

Adrian Basham has maintained his innocence.

A court order prohibited him from going anywhere near the mother of three.

As she pulled into the garage – a day after her 38th birthday – he pounced, dragging her from the car and beating her before putting a noose around her neck and staging a suicide scene.

Ms Fraser was found hanging after failing to pick up her three young children from school.

She was due to testify against Basham at a court hearing the following week over allegations he had raped her.

The pair, who were married for 10 years before she left his controlling and violent ways in early 2017, were also in a battle over their children.

In opposing the prosecution’s push for a life term behind bars, Mr Dann said the circumstances of the killing “doesn’t fit into the worst category of murder”.

“As terrible as this offending was, as found by the jury, when all matters are considered this is not a case deserving of the imposition of life imprisonment,” Mr Dann said.

He said a “significant” head sentence, with a non-parole period should be imposed.

“This is not a cold-blooded, carefully planned execution.” he said, adding that Basham did not go armed on the day, and could not have known the rope was there.

He dismissed suggestions the motive for the killing was to stop Ms Fraser from giving evidence against Basham at court.

He said a failure to accept their separation, jealousy, and frustration and anger about not being able to see his children, were “hallmarks, regrettably, of these types of cases”.

Basham had faced a six-week murder trial earlier this year, pleading not guilty and claiming he assaulted his former wife in the garage that day, but insisted she was alive when he left her.

In April, a jury dismissed his lies and found him guilty.

Justice Lesley Ann Taylor will sentence Basham in February.