Ex-cop who killed former sergeant wife in attack on stairs at their home jailed
A retired cop has been jailed for nine years after he killed his wife - then left her to die without calling for help.
Alan Claxton, 74, caused his wife Wendy, 70, to hurtle down the stairs of their home with such 'massive force' that she suffered catastrophic injuries usually associated with a car accident or a fall from a building. The former Northumbria Police sergeant had repeatedly assaulted Wendy after turning to drink.
She faced the 'humiliation' of reporting him for domestic abuse when she had helped victims in her former job, also as a police officer. She served the Northumbria force with distinction, becoming one of their first female sergeants. After Claxton was found guilty of her manslaughter today, friends told how she had spent her life helping others.
She stood by her husband despite his alcoholism, daily abuse and violence towards her. Newcastle Crown Court heard how she kept a diary of his spending on booze - around £ 50 a day. He became 'paranoid' about money after she received a 'considerable' inheritance, believed to be around £200,000, from her brother when he recently died in Canada, Newcastle crown court heard.
Wendy Claxton (North News & Pictures Ltd nort)
Claxton caused his wife Wendy to hurtle down the stairs of their home (Submitted)The court heard Claxton has a history of convictions for mistreating his wife, dating back to 1999 when he was given probation for threatening behaviour towards her. In 2001 he was jailed for three months for battery and making threats to kill her.
Drink-driver steals JCB digger to smash into family house in revenge attack
He has other convictions for carrying knives in public and there had been further domestic call-outs to the house. The jury watched bodycam footage of a visit by two PCs after Wendy made an emergency call after her husband of 45 years had assaulted her in May 2019, just four months before he was found dead on September 30.
In the 16-minute video shown to the jury, Wendy told police: "He is really threatening and threatens to kill me. But I really don't want to make a complaint about it because he is mentally ill." Richard Wright KC, prosecuting, said Alan Claxton made up a 'tissue of lies' about his wife, claiming she had become an alcoholic like him and had been drinking in the hours before she died, when the medical evidence showed that was not the case.
He told the jury that she was a 'fit and healthy' woman, had 'no issue whatsoever' with drink and had no history of dizziness to caused her to fall down the stairs. She did not fall backwards as 'something happened to Wendy Claxton to propel her'. She had also just taken photos of her husband watching porn at his home, suggesting there had been a row.
He added: "She hit the Newel post at the bottom of the stairs leaving her with that particular pattern on her skin breaking her ribs and rupturing her aorta. Was it some freak accident?.......or was it the defendant, drunk, aggressive as I suggest he was on a daily basis, shoving, pushing and manhandling her in his drunken stupor?
"They were unsurvivable injuries. She would either have died very quickly or she would have been screaming in agony. That is the reality of this case." Wendy's friends Denise and Graeme Spearman, both 61, spotted her front door open with just a dim light 'flickering' inside before they found her body in bed upstairs. She had been dead for hours.
Her husband was inebriated, holding a whisky bottle and barely capable of speech, telling them: "I think she is dead." Graeme said: "Dee had a sixth sense that something was wrong. He was in the living room and just said 'I think she is dead'. He was roaring drunk, totally incomprehensible. She had been dead for a long time, I would have said for more than a day."
He added: "He came over the following week after he had to go into detox. He was so drunk, he was in a coma. He told us she was dead, he did not realise that we had found her dead. He had gone to a neighbour to ask for money for another bottle of whisky when she was either dead in the house or dying."
Denise, who works in hotel marketing and events, added: "We used to see her for a get togethers with our neighbours. She was a genuinely lovely, lovely woman. She drove a neighbour in the street for his cancer treatment. When we were away, she would look after the house. It was shocking to find her like that."
Neighbour Philip Molloy, 64, a retired paramedic, told how Wendy would always stop for a chat. "She loved her garden, and she cared for people. But she completely changed when her husband was around. She was evasive, intimidated by him."
Wendy did errands for neighbour Sheila McIntosh, 95. In evidence, she said Mr Claxton had told her 'he might have done something' to his wife on the stairs. When interviewed by police, Claxton said it "never entered my head to ring for an ambulance". Claxton told officers that had risen to the rank of custody sergeant in Newcastle. He was also a sergeant, and promoted to acting inspector. Claxton, of Hillside, Gateshead, had denied manslaughter but was found guilty after a week-long trial before being sentenced the same day.
Drunk easyJet passenger groped female flight attendant and tried to trip another
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
