Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Size matters for SA-born wife killer
DAVID Clark argued that a lesbian tryst and constant badgering about his small penis drove him to murder, but it wasn’t enough to save him from a British jail.
On Thursday, Durban-born Clark was jailed for life at the Birmingham Crown Court for killing his wife Melanie on New Year’s Eve. The 44-year-old estate agent had told the jurors he could not remember stabbing his wife at their home in Stoke Prior, near Bromsgrove, Worcestershire.
He had argued he suffered “a loss of control” because his wife, who was also born in Durban, had “nearly always” belittled him about the size of his penis. He also wanted to be found guilty of the lesser offence of manslaughter.
There was another reason he flew into a rage that night, he told the court. The two had allegedly been arguing about Melanie’s lesbian tryst with a friend, Katie Bastians, 30, that had happened in the couple’s marital bed two days earlier. Melanie, Clark said, had that night bragged about seeing Katie in sexy underwear.
This argument began after a heavy night of drinking. The couple had spent New Year’s Eve at a friend’s house downing whisky shots while playing a drinking version of the board game Snakes and Ladders.
Clark, in a drunken rage, stabbed her in the bedroom with a chef ’s knife in the chest after she told him to leave.
Shortly after stabbing his wife, Clark dialled the emergency services and said to the operator: “I am sorry, I have killed my wife.”
He went on to tell the operator: ““I can’t believe I f****** did it. I am f****** devastated, I don’t know why I did it.”
Police arrived at the house to find him in blood-soaked pyjamas. He allegedly asked one of the officers to kill him.
Melanie was pronounced dead 12 minutes into the new year. According to initial media reports, moments later her two sons, Sheldon, 22, and Slade, 19, arrived home from a party to police and their dead mother.
The court also heard during the trial that the couple had been married for 10 years but had a turbulent relationship and had engaged in extramarital affairs.
There was even a contract that Clark signed that gave Melanie permission to sleep with other people. But the jury rejected Clark’s account and during sentencing Justice Morris told the accused that: “Melanie Clark was a healthy woman in the prime of her life. She was subjected to a brutal attack, which came without warning.
“She offered no resistance and she had not been violent towards him,” the judge added.
Sheldon read a victim impact statement during the court case, saying he was suffering anxiety and depression. “We were very close and had a loving relationship. I can’t see any sort of future, I can’t see a way out, sometimes I wish I wasn’t even alive.”