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29th February 2024
07:56am GMT
A British Airways pilot who bludgeoned his wife to death with a hammer will not be freed from prison, the High Court has ruled.
Robert Brown killed his wife Joanna Simpson, 46, with a claw hammer in their Berkshire family home in October 2010, whilst their two young children hid in a playroom.
The killing took place one week before the couple were set to finalise their divorce, with Brown then dumping his wife's body in a makeshift coffin.
Although cleared of murder, the former BA captain was jailed for 24 years in 2011 for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility after a psychiatric report concluded he suffered from an "adjustment disorder."
A judge had been told Brown believed he was "stitched up” by a prenuptial agreement and was affected by stress linked to the costly divorce battle.
The crime was recently the subject of a two-part ITV documentary, The British Airways Killer.
You can watch the trailer below.
A High Court judge has now thrown out a challenge from Brown against against a government move to block his automatic release from prison, ITV reports.
In November last year, Brown was due to be released from prison on licence as he was halfway through his sentence, but Justice Secretary Alex Chalk intervened following the pleas of Simpson's family and friends.
Chalk used new powers to have the case reviewed by the Parole Board, which carries out independent risk assessments of prisoners to decide if they can be safely released.
The referral overrode Brown's automatic release.
Brown's lawyers argued this was an unlawful intervention from the Justice Secretary and was an "obvious attempt to seek to reverse engineer justification for a decision that was in reality prompted and obtained through conscious or unconscious political bias”.
They said the risk Brown posed to the public had not increased and that he had been “subjected to a high-profile campaign through the media and with politicians that has sought to block his release”.
The Ministry of Justice denied these claims, and said that Chalk believed Brown posed a "significant risk of serious harm to the public if released on licence." They also argued that Brown had "persistently refused to engage in the rehabilitative elements of his sentence."
On Wednesday, High Court judge Mr Justice Ritchie dismissed Brown's challenge against the government intervention, meaning he will remain behind bars.
Welcoming the decision, Simpson's mother, Diana Parkes, said: “I am grateful that the courts delivered a positive and swift response following the judicial review brought on by my daughter’s killer. The decision to uphold the Justice Secretary’s decision to block his early automatic release is the right one.
“Brown committed the most horrific crime against my loving and caring daughter, Jo. He must be kept in prison.”
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