My husband raped me, says wife appealing over murder
A COURT will hear a motherof-two say she was raped by her husband when she launches a desperate bid to have her conviction for his brutal murder quashed on appeal.
Georgina Challen, who is known as Sally, lashed out at her husband Richard, 61, at their £1million Surrey home, bludgeoning him with a hammer more than 20 times.
At her trial in Guildford in 2011, the prosecution portrayed her as a jealous wife hell-bent on revenge and she was sentenced to life, with a minimum of 18 years.
On Thursday her legal team will tell the Court of Appeal that a 2015 change in the law that makes exerting ‘coercive or controlling behaviour’ a criminal offence should now be taken into consideration. They will argue that details of the long-term emotional control Mr Challen exerted was overlooked at the trial and is fresh evidence.
Both Mrs Challen’s sons David, 30, and James, 34, are backing her appeal and believe it was their mother who was a victim, not their father.
Speaking for the first time about the assault on his mother, David told The Mail on Sunday: ‘He raped her as punishment after a friend had kissed her at a place we were staying at.
‘He walked in and caught them and raped her later that night while me and James slept in that house.’
Lawyer Harriet Wistrich of Birnberg Peirce, who is representing Mrs Challen, said: ‘We are arguing that the pattern of abuse that Richard subjected Sally to and its impact on her mental health fell within the definition of coercive control – only recently recognised as a criminal offence. This new way of understanding domestic abuse provides an explanation for the pressures she was under that led her to kill.’