Guard, 53, jailed for wife murder

The court was told Mrs Johnson was moving to Cyprus with her lover

A Nottinghamshire prison officer has been jailed for life for murdering his wife after she started an affair with a taxi driver she met on holiday.

Ronald Johnson, 53, a prison officer of Thrumpton near Retford, was convicted of murdering his wife Sue, 49, at Nottingham Crown Court.

He had accepted killing his wife of 32 years as she slept at their home but had denied murder.

Judge Michael Stokes ordered Johnson to serve a minimum of 12 years.

You are going to have a very isolated existence in the future Judge Michael Stokes

In sentencing Judge Stokes said: "This is a tragic case... you are not a bad man but you did a very bad thing.

"You could not look to the future and imagine how you were possibly going to manage without Susan, who has been your real support for 30-odd years.

"You killed the woman you loved and in whom you invested all your future. She is gone and you are going to have a very isolated existence in the future."

The court heard Johnson bludgeoned Sue, a doctor's receptionist, to death with a claw hammer and stabbed her after she started an affair with taxi driver Saad Elembaby.

Mr Elembaby was 15 years her junior and she had met him while on holiday with her husband.

Johnson then attempted suicide by taking pills and hanging himself.

Final straw

Peter Joyce, defending, said the former miner's actions were a result of the "turmoil, pain and anguish into which he was cast".

He said the defendant had been left humiliated and "utterly rejected" by his wife and two daughters who, he claimed, colluded with their mother to allow her to continue with the affair.

The final straw was hearing her say she was moving with her lover to Cyprus - the country to which the couple had been planning for several years to retire.

In a statement read after the trial, Mrs Johnson's family paid tribute to a "kind, loving and ever generous woman".

The statement read: "We will have to live with the pain of this loss year after year, knowing she will not be there, alongside us all, to enjoy the Christmas and birthday celebrations and to share in our day-to-day lives."