TV boss ‘killed wife who burnt his roast beef'
A TOP TV locations manager killed his wife with a single blow after she over-cooked his birthday dinner, a court heard yesterday.
Jonathan Wicks, 48, allegedly punched or slapped wife Sarah, 49, once after she threw plates at him because he complained about her burned roast beef.
But the blow ruptured an artery in her neck and she died at their £500,000 converted church home in Stourton, near Shipston, Warwickshire.
Wicks, who has worked on BBC1’s Holby City, Absolutely Fabulous and Waking The Dead, denies manslaughter, claiming he acted in self-defence.
Warwick Crown Court heard how Sarah died following a boozy Sunday party on May 3 last year.
James Burbidge QC, prosecuting, told the court: “The prosecution do not suggest he intended to kill her or cause her serious harm but he did intend to strike her. We say that [the punch or slap] was unlawful and it was violent, and he had no lawful reason to do it.”
The couple, who had no children, had no history of domestic violence. But they had been having financial problems as Wicks, a freelancer, was struggling for work, the court heard.
They hosted Sunday lunch for three families at home, a converted church called The Old Chapel, for Wicks’ birthday.
The guests drank six bottles of wine and champagne. During dinner Wicks complained that his wife had over-cooked the beef, and about a present she had bought him, which he said he was planning to take back to the shop. The jury heard that after the last guest left the house at 8.30pm Wicks struck his wife before driving from the house in a panic.
He returned 20 minutes later and dialled 999, the court heard, telling the operator his wife had fallen over but he was then heard to say: “Come on. No, no, you can’t die, not over a ****ing argument.”
When paramedics arrived Mrs Wicks was lying on her back on the kitchen floor surrounded by broken plates and Wicks was crouching next to her. He said: “What have I done? I’ve killed her. I hit her. It should be me lying there. Just hit me with a blunt object.”
Mr Burbidge added: “He said they had had an argument and she had thrown plates at him, hitting his arm, and he had hit her, indicating an open slap.”
After Wicks was arrested on suspicion of murder he told the police: “I’ve just killed my wife. How do you think I feel? I hit her over the side of the head because she threw a plate at me.”
Mr Burbidge said: “The prosecution say that sounds as if he was retaliating. His case is ‘my wife was throwing plates at me and I struck her, in effect defending myself’.
“Even if she was throwing or had thrown crockery at him, we say he did not need to do that.”
Pathologist Dr Simon Wills told the court that Mrs Wicks would have died “immediately” as a result of blunt force trauma to her neck, of “at least moderate force”, causing a tear to the inter-cranial artery. This would have led to bleeding over the base of the brain.
The trial continues.
