Katy Thorne KC and Omran Belhadi represent alleged domestic abuser acquitted of manslaughter 

Christopher Trybus was charged with unlawful act manslaughter after his wife took her own life. It is understood this was only the third prosecution of its kind in England and Wales. He was represented by Katy Thorne KC and Omran Belhadi, instructed by Rishi Verma at ABV Solicitors.

It was alleged Mr Trybus physically abused his wife, monitored her whereabouts, restricted access to finances and isolated her from her family. It was alleged that this behaviour caused, in law, his wife’s death. The prosecution followed a nine year investigation by two police forces and was prosecuted by First Senior Treasury Counsel and two prosecution juniors. He was acquitted of all counts after a seven-week trial at Winchester Crown Court before Mr Justice Linden.

Mr Trybus’ defence was that the allegations levelled against him were entirely untrue. 

The defence team trawled through tens of thousands of pages of served and disclosed material including a 7,000 page phone download. Through a detailed review of the evidence the defence were able to show that many of the allegations were undermined by contemporaneous evidence. 

For some of the allegations—including serious bruising suffered to the abdomen—Mr Trybus stated that he was not in the country and could not have committed the offences. Despite an absence of any travel evidence to show he returned to the country,  and 4 alibi witnesses, the prosecution persisted in alleging that he was responsible for those injuries. 

The prosecution was reliant almost entirely on hearsay statements given by Mr Trybus’ wife to her GP and mental health professionals and a series of injuries which the defence said must have been mainly self inflicted. The case raised complex issues of causation of physical injuries, causation in unlawful act manslaughter and the reliability of hearsay statements. 

The case received widespread media coverage including: