Man ‘snapped’ and hit wife with crowbar
A BARCLAYS bank worker ‘snapped’ and hit his wife over the head with a crowbar more than 30 times after she called their daughter a ‘fat s**g’ and claimed she was ‘out to get sex,’ a court heard.
David Pomphret, 51, has admitted the manslaughter of his wife Ann Marie Pomphret, but denies murdering her.
After a day at work at Barclays in Knutsford, Mr Pomphret went to Asda with his wife before killing her.
Her body was found in the stables which they owned near to their home in Warrington, Cheshire.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that Mr Pomphret told an ambulance call handler a ‘pack of lies,’ and pretended that he had found her there.
The jury were told that Mrs Pomphret had been diagnosed with a number of mental health issues over many years, including being on the autism spectrum.
She had also been undergoing treatment for cancer, and the family had lived with these issues for a long time.
On the day she died on November 2 last year, there had been a ‘misunderstanding’ between the couple which led to a row, the court heard.
Mr Pomphret had gone to the stables on Old Alder Lane in Warrington to collect some tools to do some DIY, but Mrs Pomphret thought he was going to do the work that night, whereas she had expected they were going to spend a ‘quiet night’ together.
She began to ‘rant and rave’ and began to call her husband ‘useless,’ saying he had the wrong tools, Mr Pomphret’s barrister Richard Pratt QC told the jury.
She then ‘turned her attention to Megan,’ their 18-year-old daughter.
Mrs Pomphret called her daughter a ‘fat s**g’ who was ‘out to get sex’ that night, Mr Pratt said.
She claimed that her husband was also encouraging Megan to do so.
The court heard that Megan described Mr Pomphret as ‘her rock,’ and that he was a ‘model of restraint.’
Mr Pratt said: “This is a case where a quiet man finally snapped.
“You may have little doubt in concluding this was a man who had completely lost his normal character and selfcontrol.”
Prosecuting, Gordon Cole QC told jurors that a post mortem examination revealed that Mrs Pomphret had sustained in excess of 30 blows to the head, consistent with the use of a crowbar.
The crowbar was found by police in a nearby pond, which had to be partially drained.
Mr Cole said that Mr Pomphret lied to the authorities following the killing, and he sent text messages to his wife’s phone ‘to indicate he was enquiring about his wife’s whereabouts,’ despite now admitting that he had already killed her by that point.
Prosecutors allege that Mr Pomphret, of Masefield Drive, Warrington, intended to kill his wife, so submit that he should be found guilty of murder.
Proceeding