Surrey man guilty of wife’s murder after child reveals plot

Eight years after he was acquitted, a man was found guilty of murdering his wife after a retrial under double jeopardy rules.

Robert Rhodes stabbed his wife Dawn in the neck and was acquitted of murder after claiming she tried to attack him in 2017.

The retrial came after new evidence from Rhodes’ child during therapy revealed how Rhodes coerced them into helping. a plan to kill his wife and injure himself to make it look like self-defense.

Rhodes, 52, who has denied planning to kill his wife, was also found guilty of child cruelty, perverting the course of justice and two counts of perjury and will be sentenced in the new year.

Rhodes was found guilty after 22 hours of deliberations in what Judge Lady Justice Naomi Ellenbogen described as a “difficult and distressing case”.

The new hearing at Inner London Crown Court heard how Rhodes asked the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, days before the attack to go to Miss Rhodes and tell her they had drawn a picture for him.

Ms Rhodes was then told to “close her eyes and hold out her hands”, at which point the child left the room.

Rhodes then stabbed his wife in the neck and killed her in the kitchen of their home near Redhill, Surrey, on June 2, 2016.

During the first trial, Rhodes, who now lives in Withleigh, Devon, claimed he killed his wife in self-defence.

He said he “tumbled like a hulk” during an argument at the home on Wimborne Avenue in Earlswood.

Ms Rhodes’ mother Liz Spencer and sister Kirsty Spencer paid tribute to their daughter and sister, saying: “We mourned Dawn in the shadows and only a few people saw her true colours. [Rhodes’] cheat.

“He was everything to us, she was nothing; he will be celebrated, she will be forgotten.

“Dawn was caring, talented and strong. She would do anything for anyone and was loved by her friends and family.

Kirsty added: “There can be no justice for Dawn because she is dead.

“The only admission I can make is that for the first time in years, Dawn’s voice is finally being heard.”

Rhodes then asked the boy to stab him in the back of the shoulder before cutting off the boy’s arm.

In police statements, the pair claimed Mrs Rhodes brandished a knife at the child and attacked her husband.

Rhodes claimed that he fatally injured his wife while defending himself during the fight.

The child was under 10 years old at the time and therefore there was no criminal liability for the attack.

In 2021, they disclosed the reality of the attacks to their therapist, who reported it to the police.

Surrey Police Detective Inspector Kimbal Edy told BBC South East: “Dawn’s character was essentially stuck in the mud.

“Dawn Rhodes was a murder victim and the child is a victim who was raised and manipulated to do the things they tell us they did.

“He showed a high level of malevolence and manipulation, and I would go so far as to call it evil.”

Double jeopardy rules allow a previously acquitted person to be retried in exceptional circumstances where new and compelling evidence emerges.

Libby Clark, of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: “The new evidence from the child witness was extremely shocking and showed how carefully Robert Rhodes planned to kill his wife.

“Robert Rhodes was eventually brought to justice for Dawn’s murder, thanks to the tremendous courage of the boy who came forward to reveal exactly what happened that night, something he mistakenly thought he could get away with.

“None of us can even imagine what Rhodes put the boy through all these years.

“But now, as a result of their evidence, Dawn can now be correctly remembered by all – as the victim of her abusive partner.”