Man who staged wife's 'suicide' after raping and murdering her jailed
By ITV News
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An abusive husband who raped and murdered his estranged wife and staged a scene to make her death look like suicide has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 33 years, after he refused to attend court. Prosecutors said Michael Thompson, 56, suffocated Kimberley Thompson at the home they still shared in Northampton before scattering pill packets, bottles of vodka and gin, and family photographs around her body. He failed to attend court on Tuesday for sentencing - a decision the judge called "the ultimate act of cowardice and contempt". A seven-week trial heard controlling and “abusive” Thompson, of Pinewood Road, Northampton, was in the process of divorcing Ms Thompson and had made hundreds of hours of recordings of her before killing her in the early hours of 9 August. The jury of seven women and five deliberated over four days before unanimously finding Thompson guilty last week of rape, murder and two counts of perverting the course of justice. Thomson was not present for
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