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Millionaire City banker jailed for strangling unfaithful wife
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent14 Oct 2009
The millionaire City banker who strangled his unfaithful wife on the brink of a divorce was jailed this afternoon for eight years.
Neil Ellerbeck, 46, was told he had a "dark side to his character of a secret obsessive jealous husband who spied on his wife and contributed significantly to her unhappiness."
Ellerbeck had been cleared of murder by an Old Bailey jury yesterday but convicted of manslaughter on the grounds that when throttling the petite mother of his two children he did not intend to seriously harm her.
But sentencing today Judge Roger Chapple said: "The potential for serious injury was plain."
He added: "Your frustration erupted that morning when it became clear your wife was serious about divorce and it was then you applied that sustained pressure to her neck."
The judge ordered Ellerbeck to pay more than £67,000 towards the cost of his trial.
The court heard that his two children, aged 13 and 10, who have been looked after by their dead mother Kate's sister Susan Reed, will soon return to their family home where their mother died to be looked after by Ellerbeck's 60-year-old sister.
Neil Ellerbeck had hidden more than £500,000 from the authorities by the time he killed his wife Kate.
He was worth more than £855,000 — excluding his share of their £650,000 house — and he did not want her to get a penny in an impending divorce.
At the height of the banking crisis when he was working from six in the morning to 10 at night, his mind was focused on cheating his wife.
Ellerbeck was being sentenced this afternoon for killing her in a 50-minute struggle when she suffered 45 different injuries at their Enfield home last November.
Judge Roger Chapple indicated he intended to hit Ellerbeck — the £250,000-a-year chief investment manager at HSBC — hard in the pocket. He asked Edward Brown QC, prosecuting, for an estimate of the cost of bringing Ellerbeck to trial, signalling that he was planning to make the banker pay a sizeable contribution.
He also asked Diana Ellis QC, defending, about defence costs which Ellerbeck will also be required to pay.
Earlier in the trial Ellerbeck had been condemned by the judge for “salting away money from the jurisdiction” of the courts.
The court heard that Ellerbeck was shifting his money out of sight while also seeing his married mistress Julie Ring and recording 127 hours of his wife's sex talk with her lovers.
Kate Ellerbeck was independently wealthy through her late father's legacy and a raft of shares, policies and savings accounts. But her husband was determined she would not get a penny of his cash.
On the secret tapes he heard her tell her lover Patrick McAdam that a solicitor had evaluated how much she would receive in a divorce.
Not only would Ellerbeck lose the children, but he would have to pay the mortgage, bills, school fees, maintenance of up to 20 per cent of his net income, a portion of his pension and then find a new home for himself.
Reader views (1)
There was a particularly nasty remark on here yesterday by someone who, without even knowing the woman, said she had only married this man for his money. Having been with him for over 15 years she clearly supported him in his career from the days when he was worth nothing. From the Judge's remarks you can now see that he has hidden his money not only from the woman who put up with his own philandering and bullying but from you, the tax payer. I hope the Judge - and his own family - nail him hard.
- Roz, France, 14/10/2009 14:05
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