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The jealous partner of a Mercedes manager was jailed for life at the Old Bailey today for strangling her and setting fire to her body.
Alan Jermey, 41, could not face the mother of his two young children leaving him after nine years for another man.
Sentencing the car salesman to a minimum of 16 years, Judge Martyn Zeidman QC told him: “How do you explain to children of their age that they will never see their mummy again?
“You have done a wicked thing. What a devastating blow to your daughters who at the time were only aged just seven and three.
“They have been told that their mother is in heaven and the youngest still asks her grandma if she can get mummy on the phone'.”
The karate blackbelt had attacked Kirsty Wilson with his bare hands then doused her with petrol igniting their home in Woking with the children upstairs asleep.
Just days earlier Ms Wilson, 34, had told him she had had a year-long affair and was leaving him for her boss, Simon Goddard, managing director of the Mercedes Benz branch in Basingstoke where she was a manager.
The judge said: “I accept you did not intend to kill or harm the children but that fire inevitably put their lives in jeopardy.”
He described Ms Wilson as “an utterly exceptional person — kind, vibrant, beautiful, honest, very sociable and with a great sense of humour.”
Jermey was convicted of murder on Friday. During the trial the court heard that using petrol stored for his lawnmower Jermey drenched Ms Wilson's neck and throat to try to destroy the evidence of how he had throttled her.
After the murder in August last year he invented a story about a bogus intruder breaking into the £450,000 house to kill his Ms Wilson.
He told police he had left her watching TV alone while he had gone to bed and was only woken by the smell of smoke. He dialled 999 and ushered his young daughters out of bed and to safety on a flat roof.
Firefighters found Ms Wilson's body in the living room with her head on a cushion but there were no signs of a forced entry.
Mr Goddard, who had been married, had told the court he expected Jermey to beat him up when the affair was exposed.
Reader views (3)
16 years for 1st degree murder? That is unbelievable. This person should be put down.
- Simon Goddard, Cape Town, South Africa, 08/07/2009 11:10
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Alan has caused so much upset to his own family let alone Kirsty's family and Simon and all her friends and the most important their children. To actually do what he did and get 16 years is not enough. I cannot predict the future but I read angel cards and if Alan had let her leave, Alan as he is would have done something awful as he would never not be in control. He from what he did martial arts, kung foo etc would never have let it lie, I am sure that these sort of activities can make someone become larger than life and think they are invincible.
My wishes go out to Kirsty's parents and brothers and children and Simon. You all have a remarkable presence about you, Alan did not. He had to find something to find what you and I are everyday. The only thing that I have learned from this is that you just be yourself and there is nothing that could of changed anything the way this man thinks.
If you meet your soulmate you are truly blessed and Simon Kirsty is around and I don't want to upset you with that but there is a bigger picture out there. You still have life, Kirsty wants you to live and do the mad things you always wanted to do, Don't let it die, she can watch you from the sky. God Bless, see the stars, no hurt any longer.
Alan has the fear now and he should be punished.
Life is not measured by the breaths we take but it is about the ones that take our breath away.
All my love Lou
- Lou Stubbington, woking, 06/07/2009 23:09
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16 years? That'll be the minimum tariff for strangulation then. Murdering somebody with a knife has a different minimum, as does murdering somebody with a gun?!
What a pathetic screwed up liberal justice system we have. Murder should equal life and life should mean life.
And just because there is a minimum tariff why do these bloody judges feel that that is all they have to give?
This psychotic scum can easily be walking the streets again and enjoying his life. A life he has destroyed for his partner and children. A very comforting thought, thanks Labour.
- Frank, Home Counties, England., 06/07/2009 16:20
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