Aliyemnyonga mkewe usingizini aachiwa huru

MWANAUME aliyemnyonga mkewe wakati wamelala ameachiwa huru.

Brian alikuwa anaota kuwa anapambana na mwizi aliyewavamia kwenye gari, kumbe alikuwa anamnyonga mkewe, Christine.

soma hapo chini

A man who strangled his wife during a nightmare has walked free from court after the prosecution withdrew all charges against him.

Brian Thomas, 59, dreamt that intruders had broken into the couple’s camper van, and then killed his wife Christine while in a state known as automatism.

The judge told him that he had been a “decent man and a devoted husband” and bore no responsibility for his actions.

The Crown Prosecution Service described the case as “almost unique in the UK” and said there had been fewer than 50 recorded instances worldwide.

It had argued during the case that Mr Thomas should be detained at a
mental hospital but withdrew after three psychiatrists said that it would “serve no useful purpose”.

Mr Thomas, a retired steel worker from Neath, South Wales, was on holiday with his wife, 57, when he woke up beside her lifeless body.

The jury at Swansea Crown Court was played a recording of his 999 call and heard
that he had been “suicidal” since her death.

Both defence and prosecution had accepted at the start of the trial that Mr Thomas was not in control of his actions at the time of the killing.

The jury had been asked to decide not if he had killed his wife but whether he was medically insane at the time that he had done so.

Yesterday they were directed to return a not-guilty verdict, allowing Mr Thomas to leave court an innocent man.

Iwan Jenkins, chief Crown prosecutor for CPS Dyfed Powys, said: “This has been a unique case with a unique set of circumstances.

“Following expert evidence from a psychiatrist it was suggested that no useful purpose would be served by Mr Thomas being detained and treated in a psychiatric hospital, which would be the consequence of a special
verdict in this case.

“It is now clear that the psychiatrists feel the risk of reoccurrence is very, very small. It is only because of highly sophisticated tests carried out by sleep experts that Mr Thomas’s condition could be
confirmed.”

Judge Mr Justice Nigel Davis told Thomas that although he would feel guilty about killing his wife: “In the eyes of the law you bear no responsibility for what happened.”

Mr Thomas’s brother Raymond said: “I wasn’t really surprised that it went to trial given the circumstances of what happened, but he’s a gentle man. Christine and Brian loved each other. Brian is very emotional right now but thankful to be out.”

Mrs Thomas was strangled by her husband in July 2008 while they were on holiday in Aberporth, West Wales. While parked in their camper van Mr Thomas dreamt that one of a group of “boy racers” who had disturbed them earlier had broken into the van and he fought with the intruder.

When he came round he realised that he had killed his wife of 40 years.

The court was told that Mr Thomas had suffered from a variety of sleep disorders for most of his life and had a history of sleepwalking.

He had stopped taking medication for depression and Parkinson’s disease because it made him impotent, an omission that also affected his mental state.

The expert witnesses were briefed not to go into too much detail about the condition that affected Mr Thomas for fear of “copycat” killings.