Man who raped and murdered his estranged wife jailed for 33 years

A man who raped and murdered his estranged wife before staging her death to make it look like suicide has been jailed for at least 33 years.

Michael Thompson, 56, subjected Kimberley Thompson to years of abuse, including physical violence and controlling, coercive behaviour, a trial at Nottingham crown court heard.

The couple had been married for 19 years and had two children. They had been separated for two years but still lived in the same house, with separate bedrooms, in Northampton.

Jurors heard Kimberley Thompson, 43, known as Kim, had made plans to move on after their divorce, which was nearing completion.

Some time between midnight and 3.30am on 9 August, Thompson went into her bedroom and raped and suffocated her. He then spent time staging a scene to make it look like suicide.

Thompson claimed the couple had consensual sex before he later found Kimberley Thompson lifeless and surrounded by empty pill packets, bottles of gin and vodka and photographs including one of her sister, who had taken her own life a decade earlier.

Thompson posted messages on her social media accounts before calling the ambulance service for help at 5.30am.

Thompson was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 33 years on Tuesday. He did not attend his sentencing. Photograph: Northamptonshire Police/PA

The court heard Thompson tried to convince police and paramedics that she had taken her own life. But jurors were told a postmortem examination found no evidence of alcohol and only low levels of caffeine, paracetamol and codeine in her body.

Friends and family expressed disbelief that Kimberley Thompson would take her own life and told police of the plans she was making and the history of domestic abuse.

Michael Thompson was found guilty of rape and murder after a six-week trial and was, his barrister said, “voluntarily absent” at his sentencing on Tuesday.

In front of a packed public gallery the judge, Nirmal Shant KC, said of Thompson: “You have shown no remorse. Throughout the course of the trial you sat in the dock shaking your head and making audible noises of dissent.

“And in the ultimate act of cowardice and contempt, you have refused to come into court to hear from the family of the grief you have caused.”

Shant said she would make sure a bundle of the victim impact statements and her sentencing remarks was sent to Thompson so he could “read of the devastation you have wreaked”.

At least six of the 11 jurors who returned to watch the sentencing wiped tears as the couple’s daughter, Athena, who appeared via video link from the US, told the court her father was a “jealous, conniving, narcissistic villain”.

She said: “How could you do such an evil, selfish, malicious thing? How could you murder the mother of your own children? You couldn’t stand the fact she had so many people who cared about her.

“No amount of years rotting in prison will ever amount to what you deserve, because you deserve no life. You are a pathetic, unloved man.”

Det Ch Insp Torie Harrison, who led the police investigation, said: “Kim had been subjected to domestic abuse for much of her relationship with Thompson, with manipulation, coercive control and physical violence the norm.

“Over the years, Thompson stripped Kim’s confidence away, but in the time since their separation friends and family began to see the old Kim re-emerging, with a renewed enthusiasm for life.”