Robert Brown was given a 26-year sentence in 2011. But he is due to be released in November, without parole or risk assessment. What does this case tell us about attitudes towards domestic homicides?
The facts are these. At 4pm on a Sunday, Halloween 2010, Robert Brown arrived at the Ascot house of his estranged wife, Joanna Simpson – a house that was the subject of a bitter legal battle, due for its final hearing in a week’s time.
Brown was returning their two children, nine and 10, after a half-term visit. They ran inside to the family room, leaving their parents in the hallway, where Brown took a hammer he’d packed in the children’s bag and bludgeoned Simpson repeatedly. (Their daughter said she heard “bang, bang, bang” as the blows fell.) There were injuries on Simpson’s hands and her arms where she’d defended herself, fractures and double fractures on her eyes and cheeks, her nose and skull. Brown then lifted her body into the back of his Volvo, covered her in plastic sheeting and returned to the house to disconnect the phone, remove the CCTV system, then collect the children. As they drove away, their son asked if Brown was “taking Mummy to hospital”. Instead, Brown dropped the children back at his home with his current partner, grabbed some items from the garage – duct tape, forensic overalls, plastic overshoes – and drove onwards to Windsor Great Park.
