Ex-Pilot Guilty Of Murdering Wife In Car Crash

An ex-airline pilot has been convicted of murdering his wife after he deactivated her airbag and deliberately crashed their car into a tree.

Iain Lawrence, 53, was told by High Court judge Mr Justice Leggatt he would serve a minimum of 24 years after being found guilty of murdering his wife Sally.

Prosecutors said Lawrence adopted the brace position as the car crashed into a tree as Mrs Lawrence, who was not wearing a seat belt, died almost instantly.

Lawrence had denied deliberately driving his car into a tree to murder his 47-year-old wife and claimed it was an accident.

But the jury of six men and six women at Leicester Crown Court took just over eight hours to convict him of murder by a majority verdict of 11-1.

The court heard that Lawrence disabled the passenger airbag of his red Peugeot before the crash in Gartree Road in Oadby, Leicestershire, on October 6 last year and, in the moments before the car struck the tree, unclipped his wife's seatbelt.

Sentencing Lawrence, Mr Justice Leggatt said: "The way in which you killed Sally was both brutal and carefully planned.

"How you got Sally into your car, and whether by trickery or force, no-one but you can know. I suspect it was a combination of the two.

Sally Lawrence died along this road in Oadby, Leicestershire

"It was not chance but the result of your careful and cold-blooded planning that you came away from the collision with a few bruises while Sally died of catastrophic injuries."

During the trial, jurors heard that Lawrence was struggling to cope with the break-up of his 12-year marriage.

The couple, of Ring Road, Oadby, were going through an acrimonious divorce and had "locked horns" over the settlement the night before the crash.

They were still living together at their matrimonial home at the time of the crash, although they were leading separate lives.

Mrs Lawrence, who was seeing another man and had instigated divorce proceedings months earlier, had told friends she feared her "calm and cold" husband would try to kill her.

Lawrence claimed he knew nothing of his wife's affair until after her death.

Giving evidence, he told the court he had suffered a spasm in his leg moments before the crash, leaving him unable to hit the brakes as the car headed towards the tree.

Jurors heard that he feigned unconsciousness behind the wheel following the crash.

Witness Peter Hawkins, a retired firefighter, told the jury: "It was as if a child was squeezing his eyes shut pretending to be asleep.

"He was squeezing but the eye was twitching."

Following the sentencing, Mrs Lawrence's sister Catherine Kudhail said: "Sally's murder was an act of pure evil. She was an inspirational, caring, kind young woman with a huge heart. She was so full of life."

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