Man gets six years for killing wife's lover
A husband who shot dead a neighbour who had a long-standing affair with his wife was jailed for six years today.
John Leith, 57, yesterday pleaded guilty at Plymouth Crown Court, England, to the manslaughter of James Gavaghan, on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Jailing Leith, Judge William Taylor told him today: ‘‘You approached the deceased and shot him twice at a distance of about five to eight feet.
‘‘There was a distinct interval between the two shots. The first was delivered when in all probability the defendant was kneeling on the ground.’’
The court was told that Leith’s wife Susan and Mr Gavaghan, 34, who ran an agricultural equipment repair business, had been having an affair since 1994.
He had workshops next door to the house in the village of Woodleigh, near Kingsbridge, Devon, where Leith and his wife lived with their twin eight-year-old daughters and her parents.
Mrs Leith ran a riding school and had taken money for her business from her husband’s private bank account, but without his permission.
When arrested, Leith said to a police officer: ‘‘It is purely a marriage thing. My wife stole money from me and was shagging the man next door.’’
Martin Meeke, prosecuting, said the marriage had broken down Mrs Leith made it clear she wanted her husband to leave the family home.
On December 9, the day of the shooting, Leith, who is known by his middle name of Laing, went to look at a flat and called into a pub for two pints of cider.
He had been drinking the previous night and had a blood alcohol level of 260 milligrammes per 100 millilitres of blood the legal limit for driving is 80mg.
On his return to the house he and his wife spoke about an incident the previous year which Leith said he regretted.
Mr Meeke said Leith then told his wife: ‘‘I’m going to feel guilty about something else I am going to do in a minute.’’
He said Leith then put on a jacket, concealing a loaded double-barrelled 12-bore shotgun inside and went to Mr Gavaghan’s workshop.
Mr Meeke said children at the riding school saw Leith with the gun and that one youngster told police: ‘‘Jim was on the floor begging saying ‘Don’t shoot me’ and Laing just shot him.’’
The court was told Glasgow-born Leith had worked as a journalist in London and became deputy chief sub-editor on a national newspaper.
He and his first wife moved to Devon in 1986 to run a pub, but the marriage broke down.
He married Susan, who was 20 years younger, in 1992.
He suspected she was having an affair with Mr Gavaghan in 1994 but thought it was over until November 2000, when he wrote in a diary: ‘‘Jim’s back on the scene.’’
Robert Denyer, defending said that on the day of the shooting Leith ‘‘knew his wife was having his affair with another man, she wanted him out and he was going to lose his home and his children’’.
The unique set of events left him ‘‘beside himself and literally out of his mind’’, he said adding: ‘‘If he was going to make a calculated rational cold-blooded decision to kill Mr Gavaghan, Saturday afternoon at the riding school would be about the last time you could do it.
‘‘The place is crawling with children and their parents.’’
Leith had no memory of shooting but had never sought to deny responsibility.
Judge Taylor said in the four weeks before the killing Leith had threatened to shoot his wife, her father and Mr Gavaghan.
He added that it was clear Leith had had some contact with psychiatric services when his first marriage broke down.
Leith developed an ‘‘adjustment disorder’’ when he realised he was about to lose his home, wife and children.
Psychiatric reports suggested that he posed no future risk of danger to anyone, he said, adding: ‘‘This offence is so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified.’’
