Man who suffered years of abuse jailed for strangling wife

A husband’s strangulation of his wife was “justifiable” as it was triggered by the “vile nonsense of a drunken woman”, a judge has said.

Stuart Robertson strangled his wife Dawn, 62, before placing a crucifix in her hands and boarding a bus to St Helens town centre, in Merseyside, where he got a coffee, before handing himself in to police.

Robertson, 69, was cleared of murder by a jury but had admitted manslaughter at the start of his trial.

Last week at Liverpool Crown Court, he was sentenced to six years in prison after judge Andrew Menary KC said the case bore hallmarks of “classic battered spouse syndrome”, after Robertson suffered years of abuse.

Robertson told jurors during his trial that he had attacked his wife on Nov 15 2023 after “feeling a burning anger and rage” after she told him he was her “slave”.

‘Horrible person’

Sentencing him, Judge Menary said that what had started as a happy marriage had deteriorated “principally because of the abuse of alcohol”.

The judge added that it seemed “Dawn was a delightful person when sober, but a horrible person after she had a drink”.

Explaining his reasons for the sentence, he said: “I am satisfied that the correct basis for sentence is that you did have the necessary intention for the offence of murder, but that the killing was the result of your loss of control in circumstances where there was a sufficient trigger and your response was justifiable.

“I do not accept that there was, in the circumstances, a very high degree of provocation.

“Dawn Robertson was, to an extent, a vulnerable, slightly built, pathetic drunk who represented no threat to you and who was killed in her own home.”

‘Many arguments’

The court heard that the couple had struggled with alcoholism for years and “there were many arguments”.

Jurors were told Robertson stopped drinking more than a decade ago but his wife had not.

During the week-long trial, the court heard there had been a long history of police call-outs to the couple’s home.

The retired warehouse manager said Dawn, who was his second wife, used to drink up to two and a half bottles of brandy every day and would start drinking as soon as she got up in the morning.

That day, she verbally abused him and came towards him, pointing her finger at him and said he was her slave, the jury heard.

Robertson put his hands around her neck and squeezed.

“The next thing I knew she was dead,” he told the court.

Asked why he had strangled her, he said he had “just wanted her to shut up with the abuse”.

Robertson, who must serve two thirds of his sentence before becoming eligible for release on licence, nodded when he learnt of his prison term before mouthing the words “thank you” before he was led down to the cells.