Jealous husband 'slaughtered' wife

Judge Guy Boney QC told Alisdair Sinclair he had "slaughtered" his wife Sally, 40, when he "exploded in a frenzy of brutality" at the news of her infidelity.

The judge said his wife had done everything she could to support and help him through his depressive illness until she could take no more.

On Thursday a jury at Winchester Crown Court found Sinclair, 48, guilty of manslaughter through diminished responsibility and not guilty of the murder. He had suffered from depression for more than ten years but had not sought help - something the judge said might have avoided the killing, if he had.

Mrs Sinclair was killed by her "controlling" husband on August 16 last year. He flew at her in the kitchen of their home when he was told of her infidelity and used several knives on his wife of 21 years to inflict terrible injuries, including an attempt to saw off her head.

Clinically depressed Sinclair, who was obsessed with cleanliness and hoarding cars and clothes, only suffered minor injuries to his hands in the attack, which the prosecution claimed were self-inflicted. The jury accepted his mental illness had substantially impaired his mind during the killing and so lessened his criminal culpability.

The former computer consultant always admitted the killing at the couple's luxury £1 million rented home in Amport, Hampshire, but said he was attacked and stabbed by his wife during the violent argument and he thought he was dying.

In the witness box he said the wounds she had received were "beyond self-defence" but he could not remember inflicting most of them and he denied murder.

Mrs Sinclair was head of business analysis with the mobile phone company based in Newbury, Berkshire. She had told her husband she did not love him any more and wanted a divorce a few weeks before her death.

"Your wife did everything she possibly could to support and help you and indulge your eccentricities, including spending £100,000 on three cars of the same model you hardly ever used," Judge Boney said. "She wanted to make the marriage work and save it from collapse. Sally was a very good lady who tried very hard to keep the marriage together. These efforts cost her her life."