A former newspaper editor has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of bludgeoning his wife to death with a hammer.

Briton Francis Matthew, who is in his early sixties, killed his wife in Dubai with a hammer on 4 July last year.

The ex-editor of the English-language paper Gulf News had faced the possibility of the death penalty for the killing.

Jane Matthew, 62, was found dead in bed at their marital home in Dubai with a severe head wound.

Matthew initially told police that robbers had broken in and killed his wife of 30 years.


He later changed his story during an interrogation and allegedly told police the couple had argued over financial debts.

Matthew said his temper rose when his wife called him a "loser" and told him "you should provide financially", according to police.

He claimed his wife pushed him during the argument and he then got a hammer, followed her into the bedroom and struck her twice in the head, killing her, said a police report.

The victim's family says Matthew took the hammer from the kitchen and carried it down two corridors to the bedroom.

They say they believe "justice has not yet been done" after his sentence was announced.

"There was time for him to consider his actions - instead he delivered two hammer blows to the front of Jane's head. He made no attempt to call an ambulance afterwards," they said in a statement issued after they attended the sentencing.

"Jane was a loving wife, mother, daughter, sister and aunt," the statement said.

"Losing her in such a brutal manner has left the family both bewildered and shocked.

"We feel that justice has not yet been done as we realise that the actual sentence served may be less than the 10-year sentence.

"We hope that this sentence is changed on appeal."

Matthew was not present in the Dubai Court of the First Instance for the verdict read by Judge Fahad al-Shamsi, which is common in courts in the United Arab Emirates.

Matthew had served as the editor of Gulf News from 1995-2005 before rising to become editor-at-large at the newspaper.