wowpow
May 25th, 2006, 08:47
By Times Online
A British man who murdered his girlfriend in a row about a glass of cognac was jailed by a court in Thailand today, casting a shadow over one of EnglandтАЩs most aristocratic dynasties. Paul Chetwynd-Talbot, 32, was jailed for ten years for murder as the judge rejected his plea of manslaughter. He had claimed that the death of Debra OтАЩHanlon was accidental.
Delivering the sentence, Judge Nopparat Suwakanorn, said that although the murder of OтАЩHanlon was not premeditated, he had used sufficient force to merit a second degree murder conviction. "I have reduced your sentence by a third from 15 years to ten years because after the event you voluntarily handed yourself into the hands of the police," said the Judge. Appearing in chains, Chetwynd-Talbot - described in media reports as the scandal-ridden black sheep of the family of the Earl of Shrewsbury - continued to protest his innocence as he was led to prison on the holiday island of Phuket, where he will sleep alongside 142 other prisoners.
The murder took place after a night of heavy drinking and dancing in the far from exclusive "DogтАЩs Bollocks Bar" on Patong beach. The happy occasion degenerated into a row after OтАЩHanlon discouraged her boyfriend from ordering a glass of Remy Martin cognac, suggesting he switch to water. The two returned to their rented room where an argument broke out over his drinking. Prior to the trial, Chetwynd-Talbot had called British reporters to his cell where he confessed the story of the night of the murder.
"I certainly didnтАЩt mean to kill her. We were happy because she had just bought me a plane ticket to Britain with herтАжWe had a silly row тАУ we were both very drunk," he told a reporter from the Western Daily Press, his local newspaper in England. "I threw her across the room, her head hit the headboard and I think her neck was broken. Her eyes were open but there was nothing there." During the trial, he told the court: "I tried to revive her, but she did not wake up."
After the verdict, in a cell below the Phuket Provincial Court, he said: "I have to live with this for the rest of my days. To her family I say I am incredibly sorry. It was an argument over nothing." After the murder, he claimed, he felt so guilty he tried to commit suicide by slashing his wrists with a razor blade. When that failed he eventually turned himself over to the police and confessed. The couple had met in south east Asia while OтАЩHanlon was backpacking. She fell in love with Chetwynd-Talbot who was described by acquaintances as a handsome man who seemed the height of respectability.
Born to an ordinary Somerset family as Paul Rowlands, he took on the double-barrelled name when his grandmother Kaye married Michael Chetwynd-Talbot, 75, whose great, great grandfather was the son of Henry, the 13th Earl of Shrewsbury. By coincidence, his adopted brother was the Hon. Paul Chetwynd-Talbot, the Eton and Oxford educated younger brother of the 22nd Earl of Shrewsbury.
"He has been the bane of my life for years," said the brother after the trial. "Every time he runs up a debt people come to me about it. He is a thoroughly bad lot."
A British man who murdered his girlfriend in a row about a glass of cognac was jailed by a court in Thailand today, casting a shadow over one of EnglandтАЩs most aristocratic dynasties. Paul Chetwynd-Talbot, 32, was jailed for ten years for murder as the judge rejected his plea of manslaughter. He had claimed that the death of Debra OтАЩHanlon was accidental.
Delivering the sentence, Judge Nopparat Suwakanorn, said that although the murder of OтАЩHanlon was not premeditated, he had used sufficient force to merit a second degree murder conviction. "I have reduced your sentence by a third from 15 years to ten years because after the event you voluntarily handed yourself into the hands of the police," said the Judge. Appearing in chains, Chetwynd-Talbot - described in media reports as the scandal-ridden black sheep of the family of the Earl of Shrewsbury - continued to protest his innocence as he was led to prison on the holiday island of Phuket, where he will sleep alongside 142 other prisoners.
The murder took place after a night of heavy drinking and dancing in the far from exclusive "DogтАЩs Bollocks Bar" on Patong beach. The happy occasion degenerated into a row after OтАЩHanlon discouraged her boyfriend from ordering a glass of Remy Martin cognac, suggesting he switch to water. The two returned to their rented room where an argument broke out over his drinking. Prior to the trial, Chetwynd-Talbot had called British reporters to his cell where he confessed the story of the night of the murder.
"I certainly didnтАЩt mean to kill her. We were happy because she had just bought me a plane ticket to Britain with herтАжWe had a silly row тАУ we were both very drunk," he told a reporter from the Western Daily Press, his local newspaper in England. "I threw her across the room, her head hit the headboard and I think her neck was broken. Her eyes were open but there was nothing there." During the trial, he told the court: "I tried to revive her, but she did not wake up."
After the verdict, in a cell below the Phuket Provincial Court, he said: "I have to live with this for the rest of my days. To her family I say I am incredibly sorry. It was an argument over nothing." After the murder, he claimed, he felt so guilty he tried to commit suicide by slashing his wrists with a razor blade. When that failed he eventually turned himself over to the police and confessed. The couple had met in south east Asia while OтАЩHanlon was backpacking. She fell in love with Chetwynd-Talbot who was described by acquaintances as a handsome man who seemed the height of respectability.
Born to an ordinary Somerset family as Paul Rowlands, he took on the double-barrelled name when his grandmother Kaye married Michael Chetwynd-Talbot, 75, whose great, great grandfather was the son of Henry, the 13th Earl of Shrewsbury. By coincidence, his adopted brother was the Hon. Paul Chetwynd-Talbot, the Eton and Oxford educated younger brother of the 22nd Earl of Shrewsbury.
"He has been the bane of my life for years," said the brother after the trial. "Every time he runs up a debt people come to me about it. He is a thoroughly bad lot."