A university worker has been jailed for a minimum of 28 years after stabbing his boss to death and scrawling “bully” across her forehead.

David Browning left Jillian Howell covered in blood on the floor of her lounge after attacking her with a knife in the chest, neck and abdomen, before writing the word across her head with a black marker pen.

Police found the Samaritans volunteer at her Brighton home on 26 October with 15 stab and slash wounds.

A jury convicted Browning on Wednesday of murder after deliberating for two hours and 20 minutes.

Handing the 52-year-old a life sentence at Hove crown court on Thursday, the judge, Christine Laing QC, said the way in which Browning murdered Howell was savage.

“This was a sustained attack and the terror and trauma for her in the final few minutes of her life is unimaginable,” she said. “Not content with inflicting those injuries, you then defiled her body by writing the word ‘bully’ on her forehead.”

Laing said it had been a grotesque act and could not have been further from the truth, with her compassion costing the 46-year-old her life.

She said the highly successful woman may have been frustrated with a team resistant to change, but it was Browning who “perpetuated this myth of bullying in an attempt to evade full responsibility” for his actions.

Browning, of Seaford in East Sussex, sat with a pile of papers and took notes during the proceedings, but stared at the floor when he was sentenced.

Browning, who was Howell’s deputy in the University of Brighton’s payroll department, was a spurned admirer who was deeply self-centred with a selfish and vindictive streak, the trial heard.

Laing said Browning’s “utterly callous actions” caused trauma to Howell’s family and his own.

Nicknamed Spock by his wife, Deborah, after the Star Trek character’s methodical manner, Browning was described as the “epitome of urban normality”. He was said to have led a stable life until it was jolted by the sudden death of his father in October 2016.

Browning claimed he and Howell clashed when they started working together in 2015 but later became friends. He said he decided to kill her after he became depressed following the bereavement.

Howell, whose parents were dead, told friends she wanted to help him.



Laing said: “I am also quite satisfied from the evidence that you were exaggerating how low you were feeling to maintain Jillian’s attention.”

Browning bought Howell gifts and sent her texts in which he called her stunning, claimed he adored her and said “every Jill needs a Dave”.

Howell told friends she felt manipulated when Browning demanded she must never leave the university or get a boyfriend and should be concentrating on him.

In the months before Howell’s death, Browning applied for a firearms licence, bought a shotgun and knife, hired a van, deleted swaths of messages and data on his phone and took a change of clothes to the crime scene.

Jurors wept as Browning described the moment a “whoosh” came over him after he shared a curry with Howell before stabbing her in the back.

He said she screamed “You bastard”, to which he replied: “I’m sorry, Jill, this is what mental health does to you.”

He stayed in the house for hours, posting a cartoon on Facebook with the slogan “Stand up to bullies then kill them” and phoning the charity Howell had volunteered for to seek advice.

When he handed himself in to the police he was calm and coherent, but the father of a 21-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter denied murder, claiming the act was manslaughter by diminished responsibility.

Graham Trembath QC, defending, said Browning showed no mercy in the inexcusable killing but asked for there to be “some light at the

end of the tunnel”.

Browning will not be eligible to be considered for parole until he is in his 70s.