A Northamptonshire police officer was convicted today of murdering his wife.
Adrian Goldsmith, a Nothamptonshire police officer, was accused of killing his wife by beating her with a mallet, a battery and a can of paint. When he rang the police he claimed she had attacked him and he had killed her in self-defence.
Observers of police defence strategies will recognise this standard strategy. “I was in fear of my life, m’lud’ so I had to kill them, they plead. “I thought his empty hand was holding a gun, so I shot him.” Or ‘He raised his umbrella and pointed it in my direction. I mistook it for a firearm and shot him.’
It does not matter how far fetched, they stick like leeches to the ‘fear of my life’ stories.
But Goldsmith went too far. In order to prove that he was being attacked, he inflicted several knife cuts on his own face, and eventually had to admit to faking the wounds. But he still stuck to his guns about the self-defence issue.
The jury found him guilty.
So for the last 28 years Adrian Goldsmith has been one of those good apples.You know – the ones who put their lives on the line daily, and who are the real cops, not like those bad cops who let down the side. So remind me next time an officer stands in the witness box and swears to tell the truth, to remember the lying murderer who was an upstanding officer until he was found guilty of brutally murdering his wife.