Divorcee facing jail after sinking husband's £90,000 luxury yacht

Mandy Fleming, cleared of the attempted murder of her husband, is pictured leaving the Old Bailey yesterday

A divorcee is facing time in jail after she admitted to sinking her husband's £90,000 luxury yacht.



Mandy Fleming, from Sheerness in Kent, drilled two holes in the hull of 12-metre Double Dragon on Valentine's Day in 2004, and it sunk to the bottom of Brighton Marina.

The 47-year-old's marriage with haulage director Adam Fleming, who was not on the boat at the time, had hit the rocks and she pleaded guilty to recklessly endangering life by damaging the cruiser.

Fleming had been originally accused of masterminding two separate plots to carry out the killing of her estranged partner after the couple separated and she began seeing co-defendant David Brown, 50.



However she has been cleared of plotting to murder her husband by drowning him in his yacht after a judge branded the main witness - a police informer - a 'pathological liar'.

Supergrass Gary Eaton, 53, told police that, following the botched attempt, he was hired as an assassin to carry out the killing in November the following year.

However, throughout October and November, when he claimed the plot was taking place, medical records also revealed that Eaton was being treated as an inpatient at Sutton Hospital.

Haulage director Adam and Mandy Fleming pictured on their wedding day

The Double Dragon was sunk on Valentine's Day in 2004 after Mandy Fleming drilled two holes in the hull

Double Dragon sunk in Brighton Marina after the hull was drilled with holes

An Old Bailey judge halted the prosecution after evidence suggested that police informant Eaton was a fantasist.



A psychiatric report said he suffered from anti-social personality disorder, told 'pointless lies', and had a 'proneness to lie well beyond that of an ordinary person'.

Eaton was convicted of 20 crimes in 2008, including conspiracy to murder, bribing police, blackmail, firearm possession and dealing in cocaine.



Fleming pictured with Dan Brown, her new boyfriend, who was also accused of attempted murder

Rejecting his evidence, Judge Richard Hone QC said his account was 'not just unreliable but false and highly dangerous.'

He said: 'Gary Eaton is a person who is capable of inventing detailed accounts of events which never happened and shows either blatant untruthfulness or alternatively self-aggrandisement.



'By the time the summing up of Gary Eaton's evidence of unreliability, fabrication and fantasy had concluded, it would be impossible to find a sufficient bedrock of truth upon which a properly directed jury could convict any of these defendants. '

