British banker says sick wife mocked his manhood before brutal killing
The British bank executive accused of battering his sick wife to death with a crowbar said he snapped after she mocked his sexual impotence and threatened to have social service workers take their teen-age daughter away.
David Pomphret, a 51-year-old associate vice president at lender Barclays UK, testified in Liverpool Crown Court that he fell into a fit of rage on Nov. 2, 2018, striking his wife, Ann Marie, on the head with a crowbar more than 30 times in the stables near their Cheshire home, the Manchester Evening News reported.
Ann Marie Pomphret called her husband “limp and useless,” a reference to his erectile dysfunction, which Pomphret testified during his trial at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday was caused by his high blood pressure. The slain woman was autistic and had been undergoing cancer treatment, according to the report.
Defense attorney Richard Pratt previously told the jury that the couple had been arguing when Ann Marie Pomphret “turned her attention” to their 18-year-old daughter, Megan, calling her a “fat slag," and threatening to have social service workers remove the girl from their home. “Slag” is British slang for a promiscuous woman, the equivalent of the American term slut.
"This is a case where a quiet man finally snapped,” Pratt told the court at the time. "You may have little doubt in concluding this was a man who had completely lost his normal character and self-control."
On Monday, Pomphret -- who has pleaded guilty to manslaughter rather than murder -- explained why he went as far as he did in attempting to conceal his involvement, the outlet reported. The last thing Pomphret recalls is grabbing Ann Marie by the hood of her coat.
"I was standing at the side of her body," he remembered. "I had a crowbar in my hand. There was blood on my hands and the crowbar."
"I had just killed my wife. I don't know how to describe it. I was horrified."
Pomphret detailed scrubbing the crowbar and his hands as well as burning his clothes. At 9:47 that night, he called authorities and claimed he had discovered his wife’s lifeless body in the stables.
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"I wanted to distance myself from what I had done. I wanted to be around and help my daughter through what I had done,” he testified. “I killed the woman I love. It's a horrible thing to do."