BREAKING NEWS: Northants Police officer found GUILTY of murdering his wife

Adrian ‘Otis’ Goldsmith, aged 50, was convicted of the murder of his wife Jill, aged 49, in the porch of their home next to Wootton Hall police headquarters in Northampton on March 26, last year.

A jury at Stafford Crown Court took more than five hours to return their uninamous verdict after hearing three weeks of evidence.

After the verdict was read out, Goldsmith sat down and put his head in his hands.

During the trial the court heard Goldsmith, hit his wife repeatedly on the head with a variety of weapons including a mallet, a paint tin and abox battery.

Prosecutor John Lloyd-Jones QC said Goldsmith held her with such force he fractured a bone in her neck.

The jury were played a 999 call he made to police claiming his wife attacked him.

In the recording, Goldsmith said: “My wife tried to kill me, I think she’s dead.”

In interview Goldsmith said she had come at him with the knife “like a whirling dervish” and stabbed him.

The court heard the couple, who married in May 2014, had a number of rows throughout their relationship and had considered divorce.

Mr Lloyd-Jones said: “The relationship was at times a happy one but after their marriage their relationship became beset with difficulties.

“They would frequently argue and it’s fair to say they both had their fair share of personal problems.

“Jill was undergoing the menopause and the reduction in her sex drive was something that annoyed and frustrated the defendant

“We say this man lost his temper and in that rage he unlawfully killed Jill Goldsmith using a variety of weapons and he quite plainly intended to kill her.

“Jill Goldsmith was the victim of a sustained blunt force assault in which multiple blows were directed at her head.”

Mr Lloyd-Jones said it Jill Goldsmith only weighed 6st 9lbs and was 5ft 2ins and it “would have been only too easy” for the police officer to restrain her in a “non-fatal way.”

He said: “The defendant had injuries but none of these were even remotely life-threatening. He had a number of superficial stab injuries but it is the prosecution’s case that these were self-inflicted to mimic a knife attack.

“He fabricated evidence to make it look like he had been stabbed by his wife to try and fool his colleagues and you the jury.”

Goldsmith was awarded a Police Long Service and Good Conduct Medal by the force in 2009 when he was a Detective Constable and had worked in the Dangerous Person Management Unit (DPMU).

At the time of his arrest he was a Police Constable after volunteering to return to uniform.

AUDIO: Police release recording of 999 call