Husband spares poison wife prison

Linda Lees put antidepressant drugs into her husband's meals

A wife who poisoned her husband three times in four months has been spared a jail term after he pleaded with the judge to show her mercy.

Linda Lees, 45, pleaded guilty to three counts of slipping drugs into her husband Paul Lees' food and drink after their relationship deteriorated.

A judge at Truro Crown Court gave Lees, from Bosnoweth, Helston, a suspended jail sentence of 49 weeks.

He said the case details were like part of a "very bad detective novel".

Wedding ring

Lees met her husband, a Royal Navy engineer, after he was posted to the Naval Air station at Culdrose, near her home in Helston, when she was 21 and he was 19.

This really was a crime of passion Det Con Martin Skinner

Their marriage, which was peppered with long periods apart because of Mr Lees' naval career, was described in court as "rocky".

The court heard that in March this year, after 25 years together and affairs by both, he decided the relationship should end.

Lees used her own antidepressant, temazepam, to stupefy her husband, apparently aiming to find out if he was in another relationship.

In one incident she intercepted his food at a restaurant in Exeter by telling the waiter she was going to put her wedding ring into the meal but laced it with poison.

She told the waiter she was having a romantic reconciliation with her husband and wanted to surprise him by finding the ring in his meal.

Instead he became groggy and realised he had been poisoned.

Mercy plea

In another incident Lees poisoned a Chinese takeaway meal and her husband woke to find himself in her car in their garage with a hosepipe sticking through the window.

She later claimed that she did not intend to kill him but planned to kill herself and wanted to make sure he did not try to stop her.

Sentencing her at Truro Crown Court, Judge Christopher Elwen said Mr Lees had pleaded for his former wife not to be sent to prison for the sake of their 21-year-old daughter.

Instead he asked for her to be given help to overcome the breakdown of their marriage.

The judge said he had taken this plea into account when deciding to give Lees a 49-week jail sentence, suspended for 15 months.

She was also ordered to undergo supervision and banned from entering the HMS Sultan base at Portsmouth, where her husband works, or Florence Road in Southsea, where he lives. She was also ordered to pay £300 costs.

Judge Christopher Elwen said: "The outcome on any of these three occasions could have been much, much more serious than it was, but the Crown have accepted it was not your intention to kill."

After the case, Det Con Martin Skinner, from Devon and Cornwall Police, said: "This really was a crime of passion."