Sick woman screamed 'why have you done this' as she 'found' husband dead

A woman who claimed her husband had taken his own life after an argument has beenjailed for at least 13 years for murdering him.

Amy Pugh, 34, played the partof a “concerned” wife who had discovered her husband Kyle Pugh hanging outside the back of the family home in Newport, Shropshire, when she made a “desperate” 999 call on the evening of March 22 2022, buthad inflicted the injuries on him herself.

Mr Pugh, 30, had suffered compression to the neck and fractures to the structure of the neck, as well as a fractured nose and eye socket and died at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford surrounded by his family the next day.

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A trial at Stafford Crown Court heard that Pugh waited 20 minutes to call 999 after “gaining the upper hand” over her husband, from whom she was separated, in a fight in the kitchen and attacking him.

She told the emergency call handler her husband had taken his own life and could be heard saying: “Kyle, wake up, why have you done this.”

Pugh, who was found guilty of murder in June, showed no emotion in the dock as Judge Kristina Montgomery KC jailed her for life with a minimum term of 13 years and 77 days on Friday.

Addressing Pugh, who wore a pink top and a black blazer in the dock, the judge said: “Kyle Pugh was a cherished son and brother and a conscientious father. He is mourned by his family who have had to try and come to terms with his death in the context of your callous deception of how it happened.

“Your relationship was described by everyone, including yourself, as toxic. There was a volatile dynamic between you and him which escalated over time.

“As your relationship deteriorated, the boundaries between victim and aggressor blurred. I accept that violence was introduced into your relationship by Kyle Pugh, but there came a point where you began to employ verbal and physical retaliation.”

She said Pugh had been composed enough after inflicting the injuries on her husband to tell “persuasive and cohesive lies” to the police about what happened.

The trial heard Mr Pugh had been in a new relationship with another woman but was at the family home in Aston Drive, Newport, to visit his children on the night of the incident.

While they were initially in the kitchen listening to music, Pugh told the court she had “lost composure” after finding out her estranged husband’s new partner may be pregnant and they had an argument.

She had claimed her husband had left the house and she later opened the back door to let the dog into the garden and found him hanging before dragging him inside.

But prosecutor Julian Evans KC told the trial that the story was a “complete fiction” and that Pugh had inflicted the injuries on her husband herself.

The court heard the two had a “volatile, turbulent and abusive” relationship which would involve physical violence to each other and was often fuelled by drink or drugs.

Mr Evans said Pugh was aware her husband had “vulnerabilities”, had a history of self-harm and had made previous suicide attempts and had “quite deliberately and quite callously sought to use them to her own advantage on March 22 2022”.

Pugh cried in the dock and was handed a tissue by a dock officer as Sam Robinson KC, defending, detailed previous incidents of violence she had suffered at the hands of Mr Pugh.

He said: “It gives a picture of the nature of the relationship that existed between them. This is a case of impaired judgment and a lack of self-control, but not one of malice. During the course of a fast-moving confrontation, this was not a planned killing. This isn’t a case of pre-arming, it isn’t a case of pre-planning.

“This was an eruption of violence. There was an intent to cause serious harm, not kill. Tragedy, not design, brought us here.”

In a victim impact statement read to the court by Mr Evans, Mr Pugh’s father Keith Pugh said his son’s death had left their family living a nightmare.

He said: “There are no words to describe the pain and suffering Kyle’s death has caused and will continue to cause.

“He wasn’t an angel, no-one is, but he had a great heart. A heart that is no longer beating. The grief is the worst pain any parent can feel.”

Mr Pugh’s sister Kayleigh Pugh said: “We would observe the toxic culture. Their marriage was so violent, each contributing to the violence.

“As a family, we did welcome Amy with open arms and up until the inconsistencies around Kyle’s death became apparent, we still did.

“Men can also be victims to domestic violence. This does not define them. Kyle was a kind and funny man who loved his children immensely.”

In her sentencing remarks, the judge said: “You had struck Kyle Pugh with such force that his nose and eye socket had been broken and then you compressed his neck by using either a chokehold or a forearm against his windpipe.

“Such force was deployed that when you restricted the blood flow to his brain and he slipped into unconsciousness, your reaction was to call your father.

“You spoke to him before dialling 999. It was in the course of these calls that you must have decided to concoct a lie and stage a scene that blamed Kyle Pugh for his own injuries.

“I’m sure that reaction was one of panic, that you were taken aback by the immediacy and efficiency that you had rendered him unconscious.”

She said the lies told by Pugh about how her husband came by his death were “cynical and cruel”. She said: “Those lies played on Kyle Pugh’s vulnerability and cast him as a selfish and thoughtless attention seeker.

“Your deception has caused Kyle Pugh’s family significant additional suffering. To suggest he took his own life has been an unbearable postscript to his life.”