Man whose wife killed herself cleared of rape and manslaughter

A man has been cleared of waging a campaign of domestic abuse and sexual violence on his wife, who went on to take her own life.

Christopher Trybus, 43, was charged with manslaughter, as well as with two counts of rape and coercive and controlling behaviour, but was found not guilty after a seven-week trial at Winchester crown court.

The jury acquitted Trybus on all charges after deliberating for 40 hours and eight minutes.

Tarryn Baird, 34, was found dead at her home in Swindon, Wiltshire, on 28 November 2017. The couple, who met at school, had moved to the UK from their native South Africa in 2007 and married two years later.

The rapes were alleged to have taken place in 2016, and the coercive control charges included allegations that Trybus, a software consultant and developer, tracked and monitored his wife. He was also accused of limiting her access to finances, isolating her from her family, and threatening to reveal private information about her to them.

Tom Little KC, prosecuting, said during the trial: “It was the control and physical violence meted out to her, including sexual violence and the threat of and fear of physical and sexual violence on his part towards her,” that caused Baird to take her own life.”

Baird made more than 100 visits to her GP, the court heard, where she reported she had been raped, and displayed bruising, which she said had been caused by beatings.

She made attempts to leave her husband and move to a women’s refuge, the court heard, but said she feared it was more dangerous to leave than it was to stay.

Baird left a note to her family that read: “I am so sorry but I just couldn’t take it any more. I know you may not understand this but I just can’t explain the dark cloud that is over me.

“Please don’t let this break you, but know I am now free. Nothing any of you could have done could have changed this, please just know that. I love you and please forgive me.”

Trybus’s barrister, Katy Thorne, told the court that Baird’s injuries were self-inflicted and said Trybus “loved her and cherished her deeply” and “that without anyone’s knowledge, Tarryn Baird was making demonstrably false allegations to health professionals”.

“There are injuries but the defence case is that on a number of occasions Tarryn Baird made allegations of violence which were demonstrably false, for example by reporting injuries to health professionals when Christopher Trybus was not even in the country,” she told the court.

Baird, who lived with PTSD from witnessing violent incidents in South Africa, took several prescription drug overdoses in the months leading up to her death.

Thorne suggested Baird had been “desperately seeking help” for her mental health issues, “and feeling she wasn’t receiving it and she may have become addicted to the attention that her allegations brought”.

In her closing speech, Thorne said Trybus had been “unfairly accused” and asked “how he was supposed to answer the allegations of a ghost from 10 years ago”.