'Devoted' husband who killed wife in his sleep walks free

Published on Friday 20 November 2009 21:46

A "DEVOTED husband" who strangled his wife in his sleep walked free from court yesterday after prosecutors withdrew their case against him.

Brian Thomas, 59, admitted killing Christine, 57, in their camper van, but blamed a rare sleepwalking disorder which left him with no control over his body.

Mr Thomas's brother Raymond called him a loving husband and a family man and said: "Justice has prevailed".

The High Court judge described Brian Thomas as a "decent man and devoted husband". And he told Mr Thomas that, despite a sense of guilt he might have, "in the eyes of the law, you bear no responsibility for what happened".

Raymond Thomas said: "Family and friends are truly delighted by the outcome today. They were a loving couple and always like that together. This was a tragic, tragic episode and we are all very emotional. It is like one psychiatrist said, this was a perfect storm."

Mr Thomas said he was not surprised that the trial had gone ahead: "The circumstances were that it happened and it had to be sorted out." But he said his brother was "a gentle man and has always been a gentle man" and he was "very emotional and thankful to be out".

The case at Swansea Crown Court, which followed Mrs Thomas's death in the coastal town of Aberporth, was described as "highly unusual" by prosecuting barrister Paul Thomas.

Jurors were told at the start of the trial that they could reach only two verdicts for the murder charge – not guilty, or not guilty by reason of insanity.

The court heard that tests commissioned by both the prosecution and the defence were carried out on Mr Thomas as he slept following his claims of a sleep disorder.

Sleep experts agreed his behaviour was consistent with automatism, which meant, at the time he killed his wife, his mind had no control over what his body was doing.

But the jury had been told there are two types of automatism: insane automatism and non-insane automatism, between which they would have had to decide for the verdict.

In court, the prosecution told the jury that it was no longer seeking a special verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity and that there would be no purpose in sending Mr Thomas to a psychiatric hospital.

The prosecution had previously described how Mr Thomas killed his wife, to whom who he was married to for 40 years, because he dreamed she was a man who had broken into their motor home.

The jury heard that Mr Thomas, who took medication for depression, had stopped taking his tablets as they made him impotent and he and his wife planned to be "intimate" while on holiday.

Expert evidence during the trial, however, suggested that he would have suffered worsening dreams and nightmares as a result of withdrawal symptoms from the drugs.

The court heard that as part of their holiday, the couple, who had two daughters, stayed the night at a vehicle park in Aberporth in July 2008. But, while there, a group of younger people turned up at the car park after they had gone to bed and the screeching of tyres – described in court as "boy racer activity" – disturbed the Thomases, who moved from the site's lower car park to its higher one.

The prosecution said that the next morning, Mr Thomas made a 999 call, which was later played to the court, in which he said he had killed his wife because he had mistaken her for an intruder in a dream. He said he had dreamed he was fighting one of the boy racers.

The court heard that the couple's daughters said their father had been prone to episodes of sleepwalking, during which he had been known sometimes to act strangely.

During the trial, prosecution psychiatrist Dr Caroline Jacob said she did not think he posed a risk and should go free.