Michael Thompson: Murderer who tried to stage estranged wife’s death as suicide refuses to attend sentencing

A man who raped and murdered his estranged wife and tried to make her death look like a suicide has been sentenced to at least 33 years in prison after refusing to enter the courtroom for his sentencing.

Michael Thompson, 56, subjected Kimberley Thompson to years of domestic abuse, including control, coercive behavior and physical violence, and recorded hundreds of hours of recordings before strangling her at their Northampton home in the early hours of August 9 last year.

Thompson, of Pinewood Road, Northampton, did not attend the sentencing hearing at Nottingham Crown Court after defense barrister Jonas Hankin KC told the court he was “voluntarily absent”.

A seven-week trial heard Thompson claimed they had consensual sex before he later found Ms Thompson, 43, lifeless and surrounded by tablets and bottles of alcohol.

The court was told Ms Thompson’s post-mortem examination did not reveal any traces of alcohol and only low levels of caffeine, paracetamol and codeine were found in her system.

Jailing Thompson in front of a packed public gallery on Tuesday after jurors last week unanimously found him guilty of rape, murder and two counts of perverting the course of justice, Judge Nirmal Shant KC said: “You have shown no remorse.

“You sat in the defendant’s chair shaking your head and making dissenting noises throughout the hearing.

“And in an act of extreme cowardice and contempt, you refused to come to court to hear from the family about the pain you had caused.”

The judge said a packet of all victim statements and sentencing statements would be sent to Thompson so he could “read about the devastation you have created”.

Thompson and his wife, who had been married for 19 years and had two children, were separated at the time of the murder and a divorce case was filed.

At least six of the 11 jurors who returned to watch the sentencing hearing wiped away tears as Ms Thompson’s daughter Athena, who arrived by video link from the US, told the court her father was a “jealous, conniving, narcissistic villain”.

He said: “How could you do such a bad, selfish, malicious thing? How could you kill the mother of your own children? You couldn’t stand the fact that there were so many people who cared about her.”

“No amount of years rotting in prison will ever amount to what you deserve because you don’t deserve any life.

“You are a poor, unloved man.

“The day you killed my mother, you killed me too. I feel like I can never be happy again.”

“I have no respect for you, I have no love for you. You were going to be my father, how could you do this to your daughter?”

“While a father should protect his daughter from pain, you caused the greatest pain of my life.

“I won’t let you beat me, I will stand by him, my mother, and continue to make her proud.”

During the trial, the prosecution said Thompson, who lived with his wife at their home address, kept track of “what she was doing, what she was eating, where she was going and who she was with”.

Prosecutor Miranda Moore KC told jurors the defendant watched sexually explicit videos of his ex in his room, “boiled” over the fact she had a new boyfriend, planned to move out and wanted around £65,000 for their divorce.

Jurors heard Thompson claimed Ms Thompson was “cheerful” before they had sex but later found her unresponsive.

After calling 999 at around 5.40am, paramedics found Ms Thompson with a wound in her mouth, surrounded by empty pill packets, vodka and gin bottles and photographs of herself, Thompson and another sister who took her own life a decade ago.

Ms Moore told jurors that Ms Thompson had “drank too much” in posts she shared on Facebook and Snapchat in the early hours of the morning, raising suspicion among friends and family because they had spelling errors and were not written the way she would have written them.

They claimed she would not have taken her own life because she was “cheerful”, making plans, texting family members and arranging flights to see her daughter at university in the US.

Judge Shant sentenced Thompson to 33 years in prison for murder and perverting the course of justice and 10 years for rape.

He said Thompson made “a concerted attempt to conceal” his actions and “began to create a fake scene to fool the police.”

“You were literally trying to get away with murder and your deception continued when you called emergency services.

“The evidence clearly shows that you pretended to perform CPR and pretended to be in distress over the phone to emergency services.”

The judge said Ms Thompson was “on the eve of a new beginning” and had previously been a “happy, cheerful and lively person” when they were first married.

He said: “You had two beautiful, successful children. By killing her, you deprived your own children of their mother.

“You also took away from her family, friends and colleagues a successful, valued and loved woman.”

He added: “He adored his children and adored the fact that he was about to start a new life.

“You deprived him of that. You deprived his children of their mother, and you deprived the others of their sister and friend.”