Wife and lover get life for bungling bids to assassinate dying husband
A CHEATING wife who plotted to kill her terminally-ill husband wept yesterday as she was jailed for life for “cold, calculated, chilling cruelty”.
Hayley Weatherall schemed with lover Glenn Pollard to murder brain cancer victim Ray Weatherall.
They first tried to electrocute the ex-garage boss in his swimming pool before recruiting Pollard’s teenage daughter Heather to shoot him.
Twice-married Mr Weatherall, 53, had no idea of the culprits, said Judge Adele Williams at Maidstone Crown Court, until he discovered his wife’s affair with Pollard – his best friend for more than 20 years.
Mother-of-three Mrs Weatherall, 32, was sentenced to a minimum of 15 years jail. Her intended victim looked on as she was taken to the cells.
Mr Weatherall had suffered burns when his swimming pool heater was rigged to explode in June last year, a The sniper rifle with sight and silencer Pollard’s daughter used on Mr Weatherall jury was told. Five months later, Heather Pollard, who had researched “techniques on silent killing”, fired a .22 sniper rifle at him from 40 yards. The bullet penetrated his right cheek, passed through his throat and out through his left cheek.
Sitting at his hospital bedside, the callous wife texted her lover, saying: “They didn’t do a very good job. He’s still alive.”
The assassins discussed other ways to “bump off” the diabetic father-ofseven such as cyanide or pushing him overboard on a fishing trip. Mrs Weatherall was obsessed with Pollard, 49, and shared 2,310 calls and messages, some explicit, in a few weeks.
Mrs Weatherall, of Ash, near Canterbury, Pollard and his daughter, of West Stourmouth, Kent, were found guilty of conspiracy to murder last week.
Pollard was jailed for a minimum of 17 years and his daughter – now 20, who wants to be known as a man called Arthur – for 15 years.
Judge Williams told them: “This was cold, calculated and chilling cruelty.”
“Ruthless” Pollard was the prime mover in the conspiracy, she said.