Wife 'blasted husband to death with shotgun after catching him looking at naked women on internet'

A pensioner who blasted her husband through the heart with a shotgun today told a court they had argued over him looking at topless models on the internet.



Helen Lawson sobbed in the witness box as she described how her 'deceitful' husband Geoffrey had lied about ogling topless models on his computer.



She told a jury she confronted him and asked what he had been looking at but he refused to show her.

Police who examined the couple's computer found he had been looking at pictures of partially-clothed women.

Geoff Lawson was shot dead by his wife Helen after she confronted him about the images he was looking at on the internet, a court heard

Lawson killed her 61-year-old husband by firing two cartridges from her double-barrelled weapon in the middle of the night. One ripped through his heart and one struck his abdomen.



The frail 62-year-old said she 'dreaded' life with her bullying husband and they had fought for years over his excessive drinking habits.



She shot her husband from point-blank range at the £200,000 cottage they shared in the village of Wellow, near Freshwater, Isle of Wight.



After shooting Mr Lawson at around 3am on January 4, last year, she phoned the police and told them 'I've just shot my husband'.



Officers rushed to the address where they found Mr Lawson lying face down on their double bed with two shotgun wounds.



The over-and-under style, 12 bore Beretta shotgun was lying by the side of the bed with both barrels discharged.

A policeman at the Old Post House, in Wellow, Isle of Wight, a day after the murder took place

Lawson, a Scot who is originally from Motherwell, near Glasgow, was arrested at the scene and when later told her husband had died she simply replied 'good'.



Home Office pathologist Dr Basil Purdue said the pellets from the first shot, 'tore his heart apart,' while the second 'badly fragmented the liver'.



Today Lawson explained to the jury how she struggled to cope with her husband's mood swings after they married in 2004.



She said she loved 'the old Geoff' but hated how he became when he had been drinking.



Lawson told the court: 'He could be really horrible but the next day he could be the lovely Geoff again - he was so unpredictable.



'I was so low. He made me feel useless and worthless and would say he did everything and I did nothing.'



Lawson described her husband as 'deceitful' and said he refused to let her see what he looked at on their computer.



She said: 'I could never see what he was looking at but when I asked him about he said it was just my imagination.



'I said it wasn't and he got in a bad mood.



'I didn't find out until October 2008 that he had been looking at page three girls on the computer. That was him being deceitful and lying.'



Lawson told the court she drank two glasses of brandy and two glasses of white wine after her husband went to bed on the night of his death.



She said before he went to bed she called him a 'deceitful, lying drunk.' He replied, 'prove it.'



Lawson collected the two hidden keys for her secure gun cabinet before opening it and taking out the weapon.



She said: 'I wanted my pain to stop and I could not think of another day with Geoff - that was all. I dreaded life with Geoff.



'As I walked up the stairs to the bedroom I knew what I was going to do but I did not think of the consequences.



'I switched on the light and called his name to make him open his eyes. When he opened them he immediately rolled over and said, "no Helen, no". Then I shot him.'



Lawson said she immediately dropped the weapon and went downstairs to call police.



She said she then wrote a text message to her children but never sent it because the police arrived and asked her to come outside the house where they were waiting.



The court was told that the text read: 'This is one evil man. Sorry Paul and Kim I love you both. Always be with you. xxx.'



Sobbing, Lawson added: 'By that time I had suddenly realised what I had done and I was never going to see my children again.'



Defence counsel Dorian Lovell-Pank QC asked Lawson how she felt now about what she had done.



She replied: 'I feel horrified and deeply, deeply sorry about the pain I have caused everybody.



'I loved the old Geoff and still do but not the drunk Geoff.'



Prosecuting, Nicholas Haggan QC earlier told the jury many couples argued, but added: 'The remedy is divorce, not to take a gun and kill the offending partner.'



The court heard that Lawson had held a license for the guns since 1997 and was a keen clay pigeon shooter.



Lawson denies murder but admits manslaughter on the grounds of provocation and diminished responsibility.



The trial at Winchester Crown Court continues.

