Surrey man guilty of wife’s murder after child reveals plot

A man has been found guilty of murdering his wife eight years after being cleared of the crime – after their child gave new evidence.

Robert Rhodes stabbed his wife Dawn in the neck but was acquitted of murder in 2017 after claiming she had tried to attack him.

The retrial came after new evidence from Rhodes’ child – disclosed during therapy – revealed how he coerced them into helping with a plan to kill her and injure himself to make it look like self-defence.

Previously, a person could not be retried for the same offence after being cleared, but the double jeopardy law in England Wales changed in 2005 to allow a second trial for the most serious of offences, including murder.

Rhodes, 52, who denied ever planning to kill his wife, was also found guilty of child cruelty, perverting the course of justice, and two counts of perjury and will be sentenced in the new year.

He was found guilty after 22 hours of deliberations in what Judge Mrs Justice Naomi Ellenbogen called a “difficult and upsetting case”.

The new trial at Inner London Crown Court heard how, days before the attack, Rhodes asked the child, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to go to Mrs Rhodes and say they had drawn a picture for her.

Mrs Rhodes was then told to “close your eyes and hold out your hands”, at which point the child left the room.

Rhodes then stabbed his wife in the neck and killed her in their kitchen at their home near Redhill in Surrey, on 2 June 2016.

During the original trial, Rhodes, now living in Withleigh in Devon, claimed he had killed his wife in self-defence.

He said she “flipped like the hulk” during an argument at the home in Wimborne Avenue in Earlswood.

Paying tribute to their daughter and sister, Mrs Rhodes’ mother Liz Spencer and sister Kirsty Spencer said: “We grieved for Dawn in the shadows with the support of only a few who saw through his [Rhodes’] deceit.

“She was everything to us and he is nothing, she will be celebrated and he will be forgotten.

“Dawn was caring, capable and strong. She would do anything for anyone and was loved by both friends and family.

Kirsty added: “There cannot be justice for Dawn because she is dead.

“The only acknowledgment I make is that for the first time in years, Dawn’s voice has finally been heard.”

Later, Rhodes asked the child to stab him in the back of the shoulder before cutting the child himself on the arm.

In police interviews, the pair claimed Mrs Rhodes had swung a knife at the child and attacked her husband.

Rhodes claimed he fatally injured his wife while defending himself in the fight that ensued.

The child was under 10-years-old at the time, and therefore bears no criminal responsibility for the attack.

They revealed the truth of the attacks to their therapist in 2021, who reported this to the police.

Surrey Police Det Ch Insp Kimbal Edey, told BBC South East: “Dawn’s character was essentially dragged through the mud.

“Dawn Rhodes was a victim of murder and the child is a victim who was groomed and manipulated to do the things they have told us that they did.

“He has shown a high level of malevolence, manipulation, and I would go so far as to say evil.”

Double jeopardy rules allow for cases where a person has already been acquitted to be re-tried in exceptional circumstances where new and compelling evidence has come to light.

Libby Clark, of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: “The new evidence that came from the child witness was profoundly shocking and showed just how much careful planning Robert Rhodes had put into murdering his wife.

“It is thanks to the immense bravery of the child in coming forward to explain exactly what happened that night that Robert Rhodes has finally been brought to justice for the murder of Dawn, something he mistakenly thought he could get away with.

“None of us can even begin to imagine what Rhodes has put the child through over a period of many years.

“Now though, as a result of their evidence, Dawn can now be remembered by everyone in the right way – as a victim of her violent partner.”