"My mother killed my father with an ax, but I want her to be released"

In the thriving suburb of Claygate, Surrey, on a Saturday morning in August 2010, Sally visited the house she had just shared with Richard, her husband for 31 years.

He lived alone there since Sally had left in November of last year, after discovering that he had been involved in prostitutes.

David and his older brother, James (who prefers to avoid the attention of the media), claim that the father has imposed over the years "financial abuse, psychological manipulation, control of his freedom of movement, control of all aspects of your mind ".

After the mother left her father, the children asked her to stay away from him.

But without the children knowing it, she returned to meet her husband in the hope of a reconciliation.

However, what happened in the house that day of August 2010 was the opposite of that.

Sally had gone home by car and inside the vehicle was a bag with an ax.

Richard wanted her to sign a postnuptial contract that would deprive her of possession of a million pounds sterling from the family home and would impose harsh conditions, claiming that she "could not afford it." To interrupt and not talk with other people when the couple was in the restaurants.

There was no food in the house, so Richard asked Sally to go to the grocery store.

Back from there, Sally suspected that there was another reason for wanting to take her out of the house. She took her phone and dialed the last number dialed. A woman that she identified as a lover of her husband responded to the call.

In the family kitchen, Sally fried eggs and bacon for Richard. She served her husband and, while he was eating, she took the ax out of her bag and hit her 20 times in the head.

She wrapped her body in curtains and blankets and left a note saying, "I love you, Sally." And he left.

Sally also wrote a suicide letter, but decided to defer her own death until she had the opportunity to see David one last time. At 23, her son lived with her in her new home.

"His father died"

The next day, says David, when his mother left him at work and made the declaration of love, the young man was called a few hours later in his boss's room.

"Soon, my cousin appeared, followed by a policeman in uniform, who grabbed me by the shoulders and said:" Your father is dead. "

Ten months pbaded and Sally was tried. David complains of having been brought to court as a "vindictive and jealous" person.

The lawsuit informed the jury that Sally was monitoring Richard's phone conversations and counting up to how many Viagra pills he had.

At trial, Sally spoke little. But there is video evidence in which she admits to killing her husband, in addition to the testimony of the suicide prevention team who met her. They say that his confessions were as follows: "I killed him with an ax, I hit him several times … If I can not have him, no one else will the can. "

Sally was sentenced to life imprisonment, but the adoption in 2015 of a law recognizing psychological manipulation as an abuse gave a new impetus to her defense.

In March 2018, Sally was granted the right to appeal her conviction.

Her lawyer, Harriet Wistrich, of the feminist organization Justice for Women, says the new law can be used as "new evidence" in this case.

"We argue, for the first time, that the understanding of domestic violence that became law in 2015 offers a new way of looking at Sally's actions that can support the provocation defense."

Wistrich believes that it is the first time that the law on coercive control is used in the prosecution of a homicide crime: "We argue that if this new evidence is accepted, the conviction for murder becomes fragile, should be repealed, "he argues.

The goal, the lawyer continues, is to try to change the sentence of willful homicide for wrongdoing (without intent to kill) or to seek a new trial.

The fact that his own children defend Sally's freedom – and that no relative of Richard has publicly opposed it until now – is significant, Wistrich said. But the lawyer also acknowledges that Sally has an ax in her bag that day suggests premeditation – and could make the wrongful death sentence last.

For his part, David argues that Richard's treatment of the mother corresponds exactly to the definition of coercive control.

"It was like she was a robot and that he tightened control (to decide) of what she had to do," he says.

The son says that Richard was a controller since when he knew Sally when she was 15 years old and he was 22 years old.

The father "often keeps business with other women and goes to brothels," the son continues. And if he was confronted, he would say, "Sally, you're crazy, it was like a mantra of him."

"There was a pressure cooker … His world was spinning around him and he knew it, he knew that she was stuck." "My father and his behavior were the only references she had," David said in several interviews with British media during his campaign for his mother's release.

David says that the family was governed by strict rules, especially Sally.

"He did not like my mother to have independence in terms of friends, but only friends between them." It was a total control.

Insults

If she did something that she did not like, Richard was convinced that she could only use her car to go to work – because her job was to support the family. The neighbors say that Richard treated the woman as a property.

And her husband insulted Sally for her alleged overweight. "It was something my brother and I were listening to all the time," says David. "(He spoke) not only in front of us, but also in front of friends."

During the trial, Sally was described as a woman who attacked Richard furiously after discovering that he had telephoned a girlfriend. But David thinks his mother has no reason to think now.

"She took an ax and killed my father, I admit that it happened, but we must recognize the effects of psychological control, I do not know why she took this ax, she does not understand not why, "he says.

He adds that the mother always claims to love her father – something that he and her brother "can not understand".

"I do not know how to interpret this, my father is no longer alive and still in control."

She hopes that Sally's call will be able to "recognize the mental abuse to which she has been subjected and what she has suffered in life".

"The fact is not that she was a jealous woman," he says. "She has been psychologically manipulated all her life, imprisoned by this man, my father, she deserves her right to freedom, deserves to be recognized."

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