A man killed his ex-partner on New Year’s Eve after sending her a text message saying "You f***** up. Repercussions immense”, a court heard this week.
Peter Hutchings, 60, is accused of murdering primary school teacher Sally Jessop, 48, after he claimed she taunted him by showing her sexy new underwear and bragging about her sex life with her new partner - one of Hutchings' next door neighbours.
Maidstone Crown Court heard how Hutchings visited strangulation and murder websites up to a year before he killed her in the family home.
Friends said the relationship between them was 'non-existent' when they split and Hutchings had spent their 24-year relationship manipulating Sally and lying to control her before.
The jury heard how after a number of failed attempts to leave him Sally finally plucked up the courage to leave for good and start a new life without him.
But Hutchings became obsessed with her after she moved out of the family home in Canterbury and into rented home with her 23-year-old daughter.
The jury heard how in the 10-months since Sally left the family home Hutchings' obsession had escalated until he allegedly killed her on New Year's Eve 2005 after bombarding her with text messages and phone calls.
Prosecuting Eleanor Laws said: “Their relationship before they separated had been unhappy for a number of years - down to the defendant’s controlling and obsessive nature.
Sally Jessop had tried to leave the defendant before but had returned.”
She explained how it wasn’t until the couple’s daughter Frances had left home that Ms Jessop found the strength to leave for good.
The prosecutor added: “The defendant refused to accept that he could no longer control Sally and that she was not going to return this time. He remained at the home - that was in her name - and she left to stay in rented accommodation.”
She described how Ms Jessop would only return to the family home in Canterbury to collect rent from Hutchings to help pay the mortgage and to use the computer to check her e-mails.
She said 60-year-old Hutchings kept tabs on Ms Jessop, who was head of English and music at Joy Lane Junior School in Whitstable by checking her e-mails and even taking her mobile phone without her knowledge and deleting text messages and the phone number of her new boyfriend.
Ms Laws said: “He would have mood swings. He was sending her love-lorn texts which would turn sour if she did not reply.
“In the 10-months before she was strangled to death - and especially in the weeks before - his behaviour grew more and more obsessive. This behaviour did not calm down.
“Sally started to keep a diary of all the message he would send her. He sent her texts saying ‘Romance will be the death of you’ and about her new relationship ‘It won’t last trust me.
It will be the last time. I will square with you. Always us.”
She said Hutchings continued to threatened the pretty blonde teacher and sent one final threatening message the night before the killing saying: “You f***** up Sal. Repercussions immense...”
On New Year's Eve last year Sally went round to the family home to collect rent from Hutchings and to use the computer.
But after she failed to return text messages and calls to her daughter, Frances, and failed to meet up with her new boyfriend the police were called to the house she used to share with Hutchings in a quiet suburban street, in Canterbury.
When they arrived at the property they found Sally’s lifeless body on an upstairs double bed with a visible red line around her neck.
Ms Laws said Hutchings was lying next to her.
She told the court he had strangled Sally before moving her body to the bed and feeding the couple’s pet dog an large dosage of strong painkillers before taking an overdose himself.
“Paramedics called to the property said he was found lying on the bed - next to Sally’s body - but his eyes were flickering - suggesting he was pretending to be unconscious.
Police found a number of typed instructions for Sally’s cremation, burial of the family dog and a hand-written note from Hutchings.
In the note he claimed he flipped out when Sally started to “laugh at his situation” and showed her new underwear bragging about her sexual exploits but he had blanked out the moment he put the ligature round her neck.
Dubbing the defendant “calculating and sly” Miss Laws said: “In the note he wrote ‘The laughing hit me hard. The horror of what happened. I must’ve put my scarf round her neck.
“I whited out. I cannot remember much except for the whiteness. Why did I lose control?’
“In the weeks after the case evidence was gathered and the computer at the family home was examined by an expert. Evidence revealed the defendant had carried out incriminating Google searches on the Internet up to one year before the killing.
“He had typed words such as ‘strangulation’ into the search engine.
“He later typed in murder and methods. Three months before the killing he typed ‘murder’ and ‘how to commit murder’, then ‘strangle’ then ‘strangulation.”
Frances Hutchings, the couple's 23-year-old daughter told the court how the couple's relationship had always been strained and there had always been arguments due to Hutching's controlling ways and extreme mood swings.
She said: "Mum would get very upset and he knew how to manipulate her and he knew what to say to push the right buttons to get a reaction.
He was manipulating her all the time. It was mental abuse.
"Mum came over to see meon her own when I was abroad. I started to see her as her own person - away from Peter. She came alive. She blossomed.
"When she was around him it was like she was walking on eggshells. When she told him she was leaving him it took real strength. He had ground her down over the years.
"He ground her down by controlling her. Always calling, always texting her. If she did not pick up he would call again. And again and again. It would be incessant."
Friends of the blonde 48-year-old described how she became 'a different person' when she was not around Hutchings.
Yoga teacher Susan Marshall said: "She was a warm, friendly, loving person. I have not got a bad word to say about her."
Sarah Edwards said: "She confided in me that she had tried to leave Pete before.
"She said she felt she would never, ever ever be allowed to get out of that relationship. He would not let her. She felt completely crushed and suffocated.
"After she left him she became very frightened. She knew there would be repurcussions - but she was angry, frustrated, bewildered, trapped and frightened."
Dressed in a blue open-necked shirt and black jacket the balding father-of-one looked haggard and drawn.
Hutchings entered a not guilty plea to murdering the popular primary school teacher but admitted manslaughter on the grounds of provocation.
But his plea was rejected by the Crown Prosecution Service and his three-week trial began this week - it is due to last three weeks.
POSTED: 29/11/2006 10:18:54
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