Man who staged wife’s suicide jailed for murder
A man has been sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of raping and murdering his estranged wife and staging a scene to make her death look like a suicide.
Michael Thompson, 56, from Northampton, refused to enter Nottingham Crown Court because of his previous sentence.
Open Wednesday It was revealed that he killed 43-year-old Kimberley Thompson at their home on Pinewood Road in Northampton last August.
Judge Nirmal Shant KC sentenced Thompson to a minimum of 33 years in prison and said he had displayed “an act of cowardice and contempt” by refusing to attend court to “hear from his family about the pain you have caused”.
The couple had been married for 19 years, had two children, had separated at the time of the murder and had filed for divorce.
Michael Thompson found guilty after six-week trial [Northamptonshire Police]
Thompson was also found guilty of two counts of perverting the course of justice at Nottingham Crown Court.
The court heard how he subjected Kimberley to years of domestic abuse, including control, coercive behavior and physical violence, and recorded her for hundreds of hours before strangling her at their home between midnight and 03:30 BST on August 9.
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During the six-week trial, Thompson claimed they had consensual sex before he later found his wife lifeless and surrounded by tablets and bottles of alcohol.
Kimberley’s family and friends told police they did not believe she committed suicide and described her history of domestic violence, which led detectives to launch a murder investigation.
Post-mortem examination revealed no alcohol in his system and only low levels of caffeine, paracetamol and codeine.
Handing down the sentence, Shant 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.”
‘Pathetic, unloved man’
The couple’s daughter Athena, who appeared via video link from the US, told the court her father was a “jealous, conniving, narcissistic villain”.
“How could you do such an evil, selfish, malicious thing?
“You couldn’t stand the fact that there were so many people who cared about him.
“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.”
“While a father should protect his daughter from pain, you made me experience the greatest pain of my life.
“I won’t let you beat me, I will stand up to him, my mother, and continue to make her proud.”
Jurors were told Thompson was aware his wife had started a new relationship and was planning to split, and that he was demanding around £65,000 as part of the divorce settlement.
Prosecutor Miranda Moore KC said Kimberley’s claims that she had “drank too much” in jury posts she shared on Facebook and Snapchat earlier that morning aroused suspicion among her friends and family because they were spelling errors and not spelled the way she would have written them.
Shant 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.
“The evidence clearly shows that you pretended to perform CPR and pretended to be in distress over the phone to emergency services.
“You also took her away from her family, friends and colleagues – a successful, valued and loved woman.
“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.”
Det Ch Insp Torie Harrison, of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit, said Kimberley had been subjected to domestic violence for nearly two decades.
He expressed gratitude to his friends and family for their “kindness throughout our investigation and especially over the last six weeks.”
“The level of abuse Kim suffered was horrific and I would like to take this opportunity to say that help is possible for anyone living a similar life.”
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