Every third day, in our #EveryThreeDays campaign, I write about a woman killed by a man. Previously in this campaign, which started on the 2nd of May 2021, I have remembered 114 women, the last being Sarah Pollock.
Today I remember Jill Goldsmith, who was killed by her policeman husband.
The BBC reported in February 2016:
A police officer has been jailed for life for beating his wife to death using a can of paint, a battery and a mallet. PC Adrian Goldsmith, 50, known as “Otis”, murdered 49-year-old Jill Goldsmith at their home in Northampton in March 2015. He was told he must serve a minimum term of 15 years.
A jury dismissed his claim that he acted in self-defence after he admitted in court that he stabbed himself. Goldsmith wiped his eyes as he was sentenced at Stafford Crown Court.
His wife, who was found dead in the foetal position in a pool of blood on their porch, had more than 70 injuries, the court heard. Judge Paul Glenn said she would have suffered before she died in the “spontaneous” attack.
“She must have been in terror as she fought for her life,” he said. Goldsmith had “lied repeatedly” to the police, doctors and the prison chaplain, the Judge added – “You had caused injuries to yourself to enable the defence you ran at your trial to get off the ground,” he said.
Goldsmith, who served with Northamptonshire Police for 28 years, had told officers that his wife attacked him before hitting herself on the back of the head with a mallet. He disapproved of her smoking cannabis and was frustrated by her [lack of] sex drive as she went through menopause, the three-week trial heard. The couple lived next to Northamptonshire Police’s HQ in Wootton Hall Park, where computer logs showed that at 12:40 GMT on 26 March Mrs Goldsmith was looking at houses online. Half an hour later, her husband called 999 to say she had tried to kill him. He was arrested at their home, where his colleagues found him holding a kitchen knife and broken glass.
Jill Goldsmith
#EveryThreeDays
