A woman who claimed her husband had taken his own life has been jailed for his murder.
Amy Pugh, 34, pretended to be a “concerned” wife who had found her husband, Kyle Pugh, hanging outside the back of the family home in Newport, Shropshire, when she made a “desperate” call to emergency services on 22 March 2022, despite inflicting the injuries on him herself.
Mr Pugh, 30, was found with fractures to the structure of his neck, compression to the neck, as well as a fractured nose and eye socket. He died at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford a day later.
Pugh waited 20 minutes to call 999 after “gaining the upper hand” over her estranged husband in a fight in the kitchen and attacking him, a trial at Stafford Crown Court heard.
She claimed that her husband, from whom she was separated, had taken his own life. On the emergency call, she could be heard saying: “Kyle, wake up, why have you done this.”
Pugh was found guilty of murder in June and was jailed for life with a minimum term of 13 years and 77 days on Friday.
The 34-year-old showed no emotion in the dock as she was sentenced by Judge Kristina Montgomery KC, who said: “Kyle Pugh was a cherished son and brother and a conscientious father. He is mourned by his family who have had to try and come to terms with his death in the context of your callous deception of how it happened.
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“Your relationship was described by everyone, including yourself, as toxic. There was a volatile dynamic between you and him which escalated over time.”
She said Pugh was composed enough to tell “persuasive and cohesive” lies to the police about what happened.
Pugh struck her husband “with such force that his nose and eye socket had been broken” before compressing his neck “by either using a chokehold or a forearm against his windpipe”, restricting the blood flow to his brain and rendering him unconscious.
The judge said Pugh called her father before dialling 999, and that “it was in the course of these calls that you must have decided to concoct a lie and stage a scene that blamed Kyle Pugh for his own injuries”.
She added that the lies Pugh told about how her husband died were “cynical and cruel”, which caused his family “significant additional suffering”.
The court heard how Mr Pugh had started a relationship with another woman, but was back at the family home in Aston Drive, Newport, to visit his children on the night of his murder.
Mr Pugh and his wife argued after she found out his new partner may be pregnant, with Pugh claiming her husband then left the house, and she later found him hanging outside the back of the house when she let the dog into the garden. She said she then dragged him inside.
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Prosecutor Julian Evans KC said this story was “complete fiction”, telling the court Pugh had inflicted the injuries on her husband herself and “quite deliberately and quite callously” used Mr Pugh’s history of self-harm and his previous suicide attempts “to her own advantage”.
The former couple had a “volatile, turbulent and abusive” relationship, which would involve physical violence to each other and was often fuelled by drink or drugs, the court heard.
Sam Robinson KC, defending, said: “This is a case of impaired judgment and a lack of self-control, but not one of malice.” He said Pugh had not pre-planned to kill her husband, and had intended to cause serious harm, but not kill him.
