30 years for callous wife who poisoned her husband with anti-freeze on wedding anniversary

Kate Knight, 28, used "premeditated planning of a most callous kind" when she poisoned Lee Knight by lacing his food with ethylene glycol on their seventh wedding anniversary.

Mr Knight, 37, spent ten weeks in a coma and was left blind, partially deaf, brain-damaged and in need of 24-hour care after the poisoning in April 2005.

Judge Simon Tonking told Knight she showed "little remorse" and would serve at least 15 years for the attempted murder before being eligible for parole.

Her offence was "committed either wholly or predominantly for gain", the judge said and added that she had shown a lack of mercy as she watched her husband's illness take hold.

"The devastation you have brought to his life is apparent to everyone who saw him giving evidence in this case," said Judge Tonking.

Knight, of Meir Hay, Stoke-on-Trent, rocked back and forth and cried during the sentencing at Stafford Crown Court.

Last month, a jury at the same court took eight hours to convict her following a three-week trial.

She had planned to use the £130,000 death benefit from her husband's employer, JCB in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, to pay off mounting debts after forging her husband's signature to take out two loans for £17,000.

The former brewery worker, who married at 19, used the internet to find a method of killing. She then put anti-freeze in her husband's red wine and Indian takeaway.

She also told Miss Johnson about her plot to poison Mr Knight, showing her anti-freeze in her kitchen cupboard.

Yesterday, the court heard that Knight was "living in a world of fantasy" and her idea to kill her husband began as "idle musings of a bored and lonely housewife".

Detective Constable Martin Smith, who led the inquiry into the plot, said Mr Knight was trying to rebuild his life.

He and his nine-year-old son were living with his parents. He is awaiting consideration for a kidney transplant from his brother and has had surgery to restore some of his hearing.

But he still required hearing aids and support from two specialists to give evidence at the trial.