A TOTNES father of four whose wife has been missing for almost five months has declared: "I did not kill her."

Kevin McRae, whose wife Kim walked out of their home in April this year and has not been seen by her family since, is fed up with the rumours sweeping the town that he has murdered her.

The 47-year-old martial arts expert said he was confronted by neighbours in the street who accused him — in front of his young children — of killing his wife of 13 years.

Since then, he said, the rumours had begun the spread and were now making his life and that of his children, a misery.

He said: "Neighbours won't let their children play with mine. I get dirty looks when I go into the shops. There is so much going around the town.

"It's unfair and it's ridiculous. This is being spread further and further afield. I don't need all this. The whole of Totnes seems to have taken over my life."

Mr McRae, who lives in Swallowfields, where he home educates his children — daughter Cheyenne, 10, and sons Cherokee, eight, Cree, seven and five-year-old Crow — said the police had searched his home from top to bottom soon after Kim went missing on April 15.

"One day we came home and she had disappeared. She just walked out the door in the clothes she had on," he said.

Since then, he said, the family had received letters from 45-year-old Kim — all with Bristol postmarks.

The letters arrived on the children's birthdays and the date of the couple's wedding anniversary.

He said he had handed the letters to the police to try and help them trace Kim.

"Anyone is welcome to ask the police. They are quite happy that my wife is alive," he said.

He said there was nothing he wanted more than for his wife to come home and he appealed to people to 'give us room to get on with our lives and stop these allegations going around'.

He added: "It is Cheyenne's birthday on Saturday and I am sure we will get another letter from Kim."

Totnes acting Detective Inspector Kay Chapman confirmed Mr McRae is not a suspect of any kind and that police do not consider there to be any suspicious circumstances in Mrs McRae's disappearance.

"This is a missing person investigation. We believe she has sent letters to the children and that she is possibly in the Bristol area," she said.

"I would urge Kim to contact the police wherever she is because we want to know she is safe and well."