A HUSBAND today tearfully revealed he battered his wife to death after she branded him “limp and useless” over his erectile dysfunction.
David Pomphret, 51, told a court “I killed the woman I love” after striking Ann Marie, 49, 30 times over the head with a crowbar at the stables where they kept horses.
They had gone to pick up tools to fix the shower at their home but the Barclays bank worker claims his “volatile” wife began “ranting” at him and he “snapped” while holding the crowbar.
Pomphret told jurors his wife was screaming at him and accused him of being a bad parent and that he was “limp and f***ing useless”.
He said he felt embarrassed because he was “not performing well” and finally lost it when she slapped him across the face.
Pomphret suffered abuse from his wife, who struggled with depression and was having treatment for cancer and had been diagnosed with an autistic personality disorder, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
The former civil servant, from Winwick, near Warrington, Cheshire, admits manslaughter but denies murder on the grounds of a temporary loss of control.
Giving evidence from the witness box on the sixth day of his trial, Richard Pratt QC, defending, asked him: “You accept, on the second of November last year, you battered your wife to death. How do you feel?”
Pomphret replied: “Er, terrible. I killed the woman I love. A horrible thing to do.”
The couple met on Mrs Pomphret’s 21st birthday and were “happily married” with one 18-year-old daughter, Megan.
However, over the course of their 22-year marriage, his wife’s physical and mental health deteriorated, the jury heard.
She ranted at me for being a bad parent, calling me f***ing useless. Called me limp and useless.
David Pomphret
Pomphret said his wife could go from being happy to depressed “in minutes” and become “very angry, very quickly”.
The defendant said he and their daughter developed “coping mechanisms”, removing themselves, or his wife, from a situation and deciding to “let her rant.”
On the evening of Friday November 2 last year, the couple went shopping at Asda and then to the stables near their home to check on their horses.
Pomphret told his wife while they were there that he needed to pick up tools to fix the shower, but she shouted he was “f****** crazy” and “just going to create more s***”, before criticising their daughter.
He said: “She called Meg a fat s**g. Didn’t like the clothes she was wearing. Too short, too revealing. That I was a crap parent, encouraging Meg to go out on Saturday night, the only reason Meg was going out was for sex.”
He continued: “She ranted at me for being a bad parent, calling me f***ing useless. Called me limp and useless.
“Bit embarrassing – we have been having, I have been having, erectile dysfunction. I was not performing very well.
“Marie was at this point raging, absolutely raging, finger pointing, screaming. She then slapped me across the face.”
Mr Pratt said: “Then what happened?”
Pomphret replied: “I remember reaching out, grabbing her hood.
“I was standing at the side of her body. There was blood on my hands and the crowbar. She was on the floor.”
The accused told the jury he had no recollection of attacking his wife with the crowbar.
Mr Pratt continued: “How did you feel, having seen her on the ground?”
Pomphret replied: “Awful. I had just killed my wife. I was just… horrified.”
He said he then panicked and “stupidly” decided to try to cover his tracks, burning his bloodied clothes and throwing the crowbar in a pond before returning home.
The trial continues.
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