Oz man asked wife how she wanted to be killed

MELBOURNE - An Australian man, who made his estranged wife choose between being killed from a knife in the stomach or a drug overdose, has been sentenced to one-year jail.

Kevin Brooks, 52, a former Qantas baggage handler, had told his wife Julie-Ann Brooks, who had left him four months earlier, to decide between the two after he accused her of being unfaithful.

Philip McCarthy, for the prosecution, told Brisbane Supreme Court that Brooks abducted his wife at knifepoint on December 12, 2007 when she arrived at their home and forced her to drive to a nearby house, which they used to share.

Once they got to the house, Brooks told her she was going to die, and gave her a pen and piece of paper to write a “suicide note” to their 22-year-old son, Matthew.

After she had written the note, he allowed her to have a final cigarette, before giving her two glasses of wine and ordering her to consume a potentially life-threatening cocktail of 14 tablets from three different boxes of prescription sedative and anxiety pills.

McCarthy revealed that the only reason Brooks’ wife survived the murder bid was because he suffered a crisis of conscience and called for an ambulance.

Brooks was facing a maximum sentence of life imprisonment when he pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder, deprivation of liberty and stupefying a person to commit an indictable offence.

Justice Ann Lyons sentenced him to five years’ jail, but ordered the term be suspended after he has spent 12 months in custody, and because he has already served 23 days in pre-sentence custody he is likely to be freed in June next year.

“It is clear you have no criminal history and that you are of otherwise good character,” the Herald Sun quoted Justice Lyons as saying.

The court was told that Julie-Ann Brooks had initially opted for a stabbing death but later changed her mind and requested that she be drugged.

McCarthy said she remembered lapsing into unconsciousness with her husband offering to cut her wrists.

Her next recollection was waking up in hospital.

Craig Chowdhury, for the defence, said that Brooks was suffering an obvious psychiatric condition at the time of the offence. (ANI)