A man who raped and murdered his estranged wife and staged a scene to make her death look like a suicide has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 33 years in his absence after he refused to enter the courtroom.
Michael Thompson, 56, subjected Kimberley Thompson to years of domestic abuse, including controlling, coercive behaviour, and physical violence and made hundreds of hours of recordings of her before he suffocated her at their Northampton home in the early hours of August 9 last year.
Thompson, of Pinewood Road, Northampton, was not present for his sentencing hearing at Nottingham Crown Court after defence barrister Jonas Hankin KC told the court he was “voluntarily absent”.
A seven-week trial heard that Thompson claimed they had consensual sex before he later found 43-year-old Ms Thompson lifeless and surrounded by tablets and alcohol bottles.
Ms Thompson’s post-mortem examination found no evidence of any alcohol and only low levels of caffeine, paracetamol and codeine in her body, the court was told.
Jailing Thompson on Tuesday in front of a packed public gallery after jurors unanimously found him guilty last week of rape, murder and two counts of perverting the course of justice, Judge Nirmal Shant KC said: “You have shown no remorse.
“Throughout the course of the trial you sat in the dock shaking your head and making audible noises of dissent.
“And, in the ultimate act of cowardice and contempt, you have refused to come into court to hear from the family of the grief you have caused.”
The judge said she would make sure a bundle of all the victim impact statements and her sentencing remarks would be sent to Thompson so he could “read of the devastation you have wreaked”.
Thompson and his wife, who had been married for 19 years and had two children, were separated and divorce proceedings had been initiated at the time of the killing.
At least six of the 11 jurors who returned to watch the sentencing hearing, wiped tears as Ms Thompson’s daughter, Athena, who appeared via video-link from the US, told the court her father was a “jealous, conniving, narcissistic villain”.
She said: “How could you do such an evil, selfish, malicious thing? How could you murder the mother of your own children? You couldn’t stand the fact she had so many people who cared about her.
“No amount of years rotting in prison will ever amount to what you deserve, because you deserve no life.
“You are a pathetic, unloved man.
“The day you killed my mother, you killed me too. I feel I will never be happy again.
“I have no respect for you, I have no love for you. You were meant to be my dad, how could you do this to your daughter?
“A dad is supposed to protect their daughter from pain, instead you caused the worst pain of my life.
“I will not let you defeat me, I will show up for her, my mum, and I will continue to make her proud.”
During the trial, the prosecution said that Thompson, who still lived with his wife at their home address, monitored what she “did, ate, where she went and who she was with”.
Prosecutor Miranda Moore KC told jurors that the defendant had been in his room watching sexual videos of his ex, “stewing” about the fact she had a new boyfriend, was planning to move out and had asked for about £65,000 in their divorce.
Jurors heard that Thompson claimed Ms Thompson was “merry” before they had sex, but he later found her unresponsive.
After he called 999 at about 5.40am, paramedics found Ms Thompson with an injury to her mouth and surrounded by empty pill packets, bottles of vodka and gin and photographs of her and Thompson and another of her sister, who had taken her own life a decade before.
Ms Moore told the jury posts that Ms Thompson shared on Facebook and Snapchat in the early hours of that morning that she had “drank too much” raised suspicion among her friends and family because it had a spelling error and was not written the way she would write it.
They claimed she would not have taken her own life because she was “cheerful”, making plans, messaging family members and arranging flights so she could go and see her daughter at college in the US.
Judge Shant sentenced Thompson to 33 years for murder and perverting the course of justice, and 10 years to run concurrently for rape.
She said Thompson had made a “concerted attempt to conceal” what he had done, and “set about creating a false scene to fool the police”.
She said: “You were literally trying to get away with murder. Your deception continued when you called the emergency services.
“The evidence makes it clear you pretended to do CPR and you feigned distress, both during that call and when the police and ambulance staff arrived.”
The judge said Ms Thompson was “on the eve of a new start, leaving you behind” and had previously been a “happy, bubbly and lively person” when they first married.
She said: “You had two, beautiful, accomplished children. By killing her, you deprived your own children of their mother.
“You also took her from her family, friends and colleagues – a woman who was accomplished, valued and loved.”
She added: “She adored her children and she adored the fact she was about to start a new life.
“You deprived her of that. You deprived your children of a mother, you deprived others of a sister and a friend.”
Speaking outside court after the sentencing, Detective Chief Inspector Torie Harrison, from the East Midlands Special Operations Unit, said the abuse faced by Ms Thompson was “horrific”.
She said: “Today’s hearing comes almost a year since Kim’s life was so violently taken from her and follows almost two decades of domestic abuse.
“The last year has been unbearable for Kim’s family and friends, and I want to pay tribute to them and the grace they have shown throughout our investigation and particularly over the last six weeks.
“The level of abuse Kim was subjected to was horrific, and I want to take this opportunity to say to anyone who may be living a similar life that help is available.”
