By Phil Coleman

Last updated at 09:49, Saturday, 29 November 2008

Farmer Robert Wilson will spend at least 22 years behind bars for the cold-blooded murder of the wife who had trusted and adored him.

Robert Wilson: The judge described his actions as ‘cold-blooded’

It took the jury at Carlisle Crown Court a little over seven hours to convict the 41-year-old of callously killing his wife so he could begin a new life with his secret lover.

An accomplished liar, he deceived his wife, his mistress, and police as he covered up first his affairs and then the way he killed his wife.

Mrs Wilson, 53, died on December 1 last year – the weekend her husband’s lover hoped to make her first visit to his Cumbrian home.

During his four-week trial, he claimed his wife, a talented horse rider and popular rural post-woman, had low sex drive and was happy for him to sleep with other women.

But powerful evidence showed how he had been leading a double life, his affairs hidden behind a smokescreen of clever deceptions.

Detectives believe Wilson was driven to murder because he feared the two halves of his life – that with his secret lover Kathy McNeil, 48, and that with his wife – would collide.

They believe he had hoped to start a new life with his lover, on whom he lavished thousands of pounds.

After murdering his wife, he staged a fake tractor accident in a barn at the couple’s Kirkandrews-on-Eden farm to cover it up.

In court, there were gasps from Mrs Wilson’s relatives in the public gallery as the jury forewomen delivered the unanimous guilty verdict just after 2pm yesterday.

The victim’s son Lee Kennedy, 30, sobbed with relief and had to be led from he court by relatives but not before he shouted: “Lights out Bob!”

Mr Justice David Clarke, passing sentence, said of Wilson: “He has been found guilty of a cruel, calculated and cold-blooded murder.

“The death of Jane Wilson caused huge shock and grief at the time to her son, her daughter, her mother, sister, and to many other relatives; and to countless friends and colleagues in the various circles in which she moved in the local community.”

The sense of grief and loss at Mrs Wilson’s death was aggravated by the discovery that her death had not been a tragic accident, said the judge.

“It was a brutal and calculated killing by the husband who she loved and trusted, and who betrayed that trust in gravest possible manner.”

The judge hoped Jane Wilson’s family – particularly her son Lee and daughter Sharon, 32 – can begin to look forward in their lives again.

He said: “Jane Wilson was a person of energy, and positive temperament.

“I believe she would not have wanted her son and daughter to have their lives blighted by grief at her loss – a loss that is incalculable.”

All that could be said in Wilson’s favour, he said, was his previous “good character” and history as a hard-worker.

“But even his previous good character,” said the judge, “has to be qualified by the fact that he is an accomplished and habitual liar, who has deceived and sometimes manipulated other people.”

The murder investigation was launched after Lee Kennedy and his sister Sharon found love tokens from Mrs McNeil by chance at their stepfather’s home.

The was the first clue to his remarkable secret life.

The trial heard how Wilson lied compulsively, and on a grand scale, telling Mrs McNeil his wife died more than a year before she did and saying to colleagues he had cancer when he didn’t.

Despite claiming to love and respect his wife, he slept with two other women in the marital bed within a month of Jane Wilson’s death.

He claimed his relationship with his lover Kathy McNeil was a fling, yet he included her in his will, leaving her 45 per cent of estate.

But his biggest lie – about how his wife died – was exposed when Home Office pathologist Dr Alison said the lack of blood near Jane Wilson’s body showed she was already dead when her husband ran her over.

Mr Justice Clarke paid tribute to Mrs Wilson’s sister and two adult children, while police said Sharon and Lee Kennedy’s courage and quick thinking were a key factor in bringing Wilson to justice.

First published at 09:00, Saturday, 29 November 2008
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk