Husband who ‘drove his wife to suicide’ strangled her with a belt while he raped her, court hears

It was learned that the woman, who was allegedly driven to suicide by her husband, told her former school friend that he raped her by strangling her with a belt.

Carina Silva told the court how ‘hysterical’ she was after Tarryn Baird informed her of Christopher Trybus’ sexual assault allegation.

Trybus, 43, is accused of being responsible for Ms Baird’s death after subjecting her to ‘extensive’ acts of manipulative behavior and sexual violence.

Ms Baird hanged herself at their home in Swindon, Wiltshire, when she was 34.

Giving evidence to the jury, Ms Silva said Trybus also hit Ms Baird up to 25 times during their ‘hostile’ relationship.

He said Trybus’ harassment left him with a ‘hollow shell’.

Ms. Silva met Ms. Baird while playing hockey at school in their native Johannesburg, South Africa, when he was 14 and Ms. Baird was 16.

They remained friends until Ms. Baird committed suicide on November 28, 2017.

Prosecutor Rebecca Fairbairn asked him: ‘What did he say about their relationship?’

Ms Silva said: ‘He said he was hostile, he enjoyed spending time with her. But most of the time he was hostile and afraid of her.

‘Every time we talked he would tell me more. He looked scared.

‘She would often tell me that he was abusing her, hitting her, but sometimes he would take it back, so I didn’t really know how to deal with it.

‘He said you hit him, he said there was a lot of swearing.’

Miss Fairbairn asked him: ‘Can you tell me how many times Tarryn said he hit her?’

Ms Silva said: ‘I have a clear indication that it happened close to 25 times.’

She told Winchester Crown Court how her former friend Miss Baird made the rape allegation to her after they met to celebrate Miss Silva’s engagement at Paddington railway station.

He said Ms Baird was ‘cheerful’ at first but then her mood changed and he asked her what was wrong.

Ms Silva added: ‘She described two incidents; Someone was angry when Chris came home and they had an argument.

‘He took her to the spare bedroom and raped her. He said he strangled her.”

He also told the jury: ‘He mentioned a belt.’

Miss Fairbairn asked: ‘Do you remember what Tarryn was like when he mentioned this incident?’

Ms Silva said Ms Baird was left in pain and said: ‘She was hysterical.’

The prosecutor asked whether Ms Silva suggested going to the police, and she said she did so.

Ms Silva continued: ‘Then she told me about the pain she had experienced.

‘He told me about that incident how much his body hurt and that he couldn’t move his neck because he told me he was choking.’

Ms Silva next tried to ‘force’ Ms Baird to come home with her, but her friend refused.

He also told her to keep a diary for ‘evidence if she needs it’.

He later described how his friend changed after that, saying: ‘He wasn’t my friend anymore. He was an empty shell.

‘We would laugh for hours, but it became empty.’

Ms Silva told the court Ms Baird would wait until the pair were alone to tell her the truth about the injuries she had suffered because Trybus had been violent towards her.

At one point, Ms Baird was worried she would look like a ‘sex-crazed weirdo’ because of the injury to her neck caused by Trybus wearing a belt around her neck during sex.

This incident was separate from the rape allegation mentioned by Ms Silva.

Ms Silva said that in April 2016 Ms Baird said she did not know what kind of injury she had to her face, and in June the same year she told Ms Silva that she thought the eye injury was caused by an ‘allergic reaction’.

The following month, he sent Ms Silva a photo of the injury to her abdomen, saying it was due to her ‘tumble over’.

He also said there was an injury to his ‘personal parts’ which he would not show to Ms Silva.

Ms Silva said: ‘At this point Tarryn’s stories about the fall were making me very worried.

‘I still sent the footage to my mother to keep as a backup and ask for her advice on how to approach the situation.

‘I didn’t believe all these persistent bruises could be caused by a fall.’

Around this time, Ms Baird said she was bruised from tripping and falling, but tripped because Trybus ‘pushed his chest towards her’.

On September 13, 2016, Ms. Baird sent an image of her neck injury to Ms. Silva.

Ms. Silva asked him if this was due to rough sex.

Miss Baird said: ‘Haha no no, it was rough sex weekend, he just took a whack to the neck and he’s been bruising really, really easily lately.’

Ms Silva responded: ‘Oh, good.’

Ms Baird later said: ‘Oh my God, do you think if I walk around like that people will think it’s because of rough sex?

‘Oh my God, people are going to think I’m some sex-crazed weirdo.’

Ms Silva believed the injury resembled a ‘problem from rough sex’.

He said: ‘We had talked about it and she told me Christopher was wearing a belt around his neck.’

Ms Silva confirmed that this was a separate incident from the rape.

He continued: ‘About this, he said sex with her was getting rougher.’

On 21 November 2016, Ms Baird told Ms Silva that she ‘woke up covered in very bad bruises for no reason’.

He sent photos of both of his arms.

Ms. Silva began to cry as she explained that she always asked Ms. Baird how the wounds she described to her occurred.

“When I was with him and we called, most of the time he would say, ‘Oh, I fell, I tripped,'” he said.

‘When it was just the two of us, she would say it was Chris who was abusing her.’

Ms Silva said that at one point she called Trybus to ask Ms Baird what was going on, but he did not tell her what she had said about domestic violence.

As for what his explanation for the injuries was, he said: ‘He explained that he had become quite ill with the different medications they had given him, so he fell or tripped.’

Ms Silva said she became ‘hysterical’ about Ms Baird because of her concerns about her friend.

In February 2017, Ms Baird told Ms Silva she was considering leaving if Trybus ‘exploded’ again.

Ms. Silva then repeatedly asked Ms. Baird to stay with her, but Ms. Baird did not agree to do so.

The court also heard how Ms Baird suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after witnessing two armed kidnappings in South Africa.

Ms Silva told the jury Ms Baird witnessed a shooting when she was in her early 20s, which left her ‘on edge’ for a while.

‘He seemed to be back to normal before coming to the UK,’ he said.

Ms Silva said the decision to move to England came ‘extremely quickly’.

Trybus moved to England with Ms Baird in 2007 and married in 2009.

Ms Baird was working from home at Trybus, doing the administration and accounts.

IT consultant Trybus is charged with manslaughter, controlling and coercive behavior and two counts of rape in relation to Ms Baird.

Trybus, who was 35 at the time of Ms Baird’s death, is also accused of controlling and coercive behavior between December 2015 and November 2017.

He denies the accusations.

Yesterday the court heard Ms Baird took 25 photographs of the injured before she died. He has bruises on his face, torso and arm.

She sent two of the photos to her mother, Michelle Baird, and the same ones to her husband, Christopher Trybus, but he did not respond.

Other photos from his Apple iPhone 7 were also sent to friends in the months before his death, jurors were told.

The court heard Ms Baird’s mobile phone was restored to factory settings, with personal information deleted, just a year before her death.

But a police expert said data on the device was backed up in iCloud and was being investigated by police after the woman’s death.

On Monday, jurors were read from Ms. Baird’s diary entries in which she said her husband became increasingly rough during sex with her and enjoyed it when he reciprocated.

‘I’ll never forget the day it all spilled over and it exploded,’ he wrote in a post in early 2016.

Ms Baird continued: ‘The sex gets rougher and the more I resist, the more he enjoys it. It’s like this side of him has been hidden all these years.’

He insisted that he “loves and cares” for his wife, telling lawyers that his wife’s alleged domestic violence injuries were caused by “freaky bondage” and consensual “rough sex.”

Earlier this month the court heard Ms Baird told a crisis line just hours before she was found dead that she ‘wanted to get this over with’ because ‘they needed to send someone’.

Her lawyers argued Ms Baird had ‘mental health issues’ and that her suicide was ‘a cry for help gone tragically awry’.

The trial continues.

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