Wife who killed husband with hammer ‘was inspired by The Archers to launch her appeal’
‘The ultimate risk is homicide’
A MOTHER’S appeal against her conviction for murdering her husband after decades of domestic abuse may have been partly inspired by a storyline in The Archers, a court heard yesterday.
Sally Challen, 65, claims she was provoked by long-term ‘coercive and controlling behaviour’ into bludgeoning husband Richard to death with a hammer at their £1million Surrey home.
The Police Federation worker, whose real name is Georgina, was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the 2010 murder. This was reduced to 18 years on appeal.
Her conviction in 2011 came four years before coercive and controlling behaviour in intimate relationships was recognised as a criminal offence.
Challen’s lawyers argue that if more had been known about the pattern of behaviour at her trial – typified by intimidation, isolation and ‘gaslighting’, when a partner is made to feel they are going mad – she would have been convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter.
They hope her murder conviction will be overturned because of her husband’s behaviour, allowing long-term mental and emotional abuse to be treated similarly to physical abuse in relationships.
Challen has claimed that her husband repeatedly embarked on affairs and belittled and bullied her.
About 50 supporters waving ‘ Free Sally Challen’ placards attended the Court of Appeal in London yesterday. A ruling is expected today.
Her lawyers say the abuse she endured led to mental health issues that significantly clouded her judgment before the killing.
The prosecution argued at trial that Challen was a jealous, obses- sive partner who suspected her husband of infidelity. They met when she was 15 and he 22, and were married for 31 years.
Gaslighting was highlighted in 2016 in the Radio 4 soap opera The Archers, in which Helen Archer stabbed husband Rob after he repeatedly used tactics to make her doubt her own sense of reality.
Questioning consultant psychiatrist Dr Paul Gilluley yesterday, Challen’s barrister Clare Wade QC read a psychiatric assessment of her while she was in custody.
It said: ‘I wonder if she has been listening to this programme on Radio 4 about the woman who has been brainwashed by her husband and ends up killing him.’
Mrs Wade said: ‘The significance of The Archers story is that it was about coercive control.’
Dr Gilluley replied: ‘It was also about a woman who attempts to kill her husband.’
A written statement outlining Challen’s case said that at the time of her trial ‘there was insufficient understanding among criminal justice practitioners and psychiatrists of coercive control as a form of domestic abuse’.
Mrs Wade said: ‘ The harm caused to the appellant as a result of coercive control was not sufficiently appreciated … The ultimate loss of control at the point of the final trigger should be viewed within the context of the longevity of the provocation, which was in excess of 30 years.’
Challen listened via videolink from Bronzefield prison as the court heard from an expert in the theory of coercive control.
Evan Stark, a retired forensic social worker and visiting professor at De Montfort University in Leicester, said it was now recognised as the most common form of domestic abuse.
‘It is designed to subjugate and dominate, not merely to hurt,’ he added. Asked what the ‘ultimate risks’ are in a relationship marred by coercive control, he said: ‘The ultimate risk is homicide.’
Prosecutors argue that Challen’s mental state was sound in the weeks leading up to the murder, citing the fact that she was having weekly lunches with her cousin, regular dinners with her husband and attending work.
Supporters from domestic violence charities were among those outside the hearing at London’s Royal Courts of Justice. Challen is also being backed by her two sons, David, 31, and James, 35.
David said it was a watershed moment ‘not only for my mother … but for thousands of other women like her who have been the victims of coercive control’.