Surrey man guilty of wife’s murder after son reveals plot

A man has been found guilty of murdering his wife eight years after being acquitted of the crime, after his son came forward with new evidence.

Robert Rhodes stabbed his wife Dawn in the neck, but was cleared of murder in 2017 after claiming she had tried to attack him.

The retrial came after new evidence from Rhodes’ son, revealed during therapy, revealed how he forced them to help with a plan to kill her and self-harm to make it look like self-defense.

Previously, a person could not be tried again for the same crime after being acquitted, but double jeopardy law in England and Wales changed in 2005 to allow a second trial for the most serious crimes, including murder.

Rhodes, 52, who denied plotting to kill his wife, was also found guilty of child cruelty, perverting the course of justice and two counts of perjury and will be sentenced next year.

He was found guilty after 22 hours of deliberations in what Judge Naomi Ellenbogen called a “difficult and disturbing case.”

The retrial at Inner London Crown Court heard how, days before the attack, Rhodes asked the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to go see Mrs Rhodes and tell her that a drawing had been drawn of her.

Mrs Rhodes was then told to “close her eyes and hold out her hands”, at which point the boy left the room.

Rhodes then stabbed his wife in the neck and killed her in the kitchen of their home near Redhill in Surrey on June 2, 2016.

During the original trial, Rhodes, who now lives in Withleigh, Devon, claimed he had killed his wife in self-defence.

He said she “turned around like a Hulk” during an argument at the house on Wimborne Avenue in Earlswood.

Paying tribute to her daughter and sister, Mrs Rhodes’ mother Liz Spencer and sister Kirsty Spencer said: “We mourned Dawn in the shadows with the support of only a few who saw through her [Rhodes’] deception.

“She was everything to us and he is nothing, she will be celebrated and he will be forgotten.

“Dawn was loving, capable and strong. She would do anything for anyone and was loved by friends and family alike.

Kirsty added: “There can be no justice for Dawn because she is dead.

“The only acknowledgment I make is that, for the first time in years, Dawn’s voice has finally been heard.”

Rhodes later asked the boy to stab him in the back of the shoulder before cutting off his arm.

In police interviews, the couple claimed that Mrs Rhodes had pulled a knife on the boy and attacked her husband.

Rhodes claimed he fatally injured his wife while defending herself in the ensuing fight.

The boy was under 10 years old at the time and therefore bears no criminal responsibility for the attack.

They revealed the truth of the attacks to their therapist in 2021, who reported it to the police.

Surrey Police Detective Constable Kimbal Edey told BBC South East: “Dawn’s character was essentially dragged through the mud.

“Dawn Rhodes was a murder victim and the boy is a victim who was groomed and manipulated into doing the things we were told they did.

“He has shown a high level of malevolence, manipulation, and I would even go so far as to say evil.”

Double criminality rules allow cases where a person has already been acquitted to be retried in exceptional circumstances where new and compelling evidence has come to light.

Libby Clark, of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: “The new evidence that came from the child witness was deeply shocking and showed how careful planning Robert Rhodes had put into the murder of his wife.

“It is thanks to the boy’s immense bravery in explaining exactly what happened that night that Robert Rhodes has finally been brought to justice for Dawn’s murder, something he mistakenly thought he could get away with.

“None of us can even begin to imagine what Rhodes has put the boy through for many years.

“However, now, thanks to their evidence, everyone can remember Dawn the right way: as a victim of her violent partner.”