A Surrey father has been sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 29 years and six months for the brutal murder of his wife and a subsequent cover-up that chillingly involved his own child.
A Marriage Breakdown and a Fatal Crime
Robert Rhodes, aged 52, murdered his wife Dawn at their family home in Surrey in 2016. The court heard that the killing followed the breakdown of the couple's marriage. In a desperate attempt to evade justice, Rhodes then orchestrated a macabre and elaborate scheme to disguise the crime.
A Chilling Cover-Up Involving a Child
Rhodes's plan involved fabricating a story that his wife had attacked both him and their child with a knife. To give this false narrative credibility, he inflicted a stab wound upon himself and also caused a cut to his child's arm. He then proceeded to involve the child in making a emergency 999 call to report the fabricated attack.
This act formed a central part of the prosecution's case, demonstrating the lengths to which Rhodes was willing to go to conceal his guilt, directly endangering and traumatising his own offspring in the process.
Rare Double Jeopardy Trial Leads to Conviction
The case reached a conclusion at the Inner London Crown Court following what is known as a rare double jeopardy trial. This legal mechanism allows for a defendant to be retried for a serious offence if compelling new evidence emerges, even after an earlier acquittal.
Rhodes was ultimately convicted of the murder of Dawn Rhodes. Beyond the murder charge, the jury also found him guilty of multiple other offences related to his cover-up. These included perjury, perverting the course of justice, and a separate count of child cruelty for the role he forced his child to play in the aftermath of the killing.
The judge, sentencing him to life with a minimum term of 29 years and six months behind bars, emphasised the calculated nature of the crime and the profound abuse of trust involved in using a child as a pawn in the cover-up.
