Husband cleared of killing his wife

A barrister has suggested that a “dead woman was put on trial” in the case of Christopher Trybus, who was cleared of manslaughter by a jury.

Charlotte Proudman’s comments came after Trybus was found not guilty by a jury of eight women and four men, who deliberated for more than 40 hours.

He was acquitted of all charges: manslaughter, coercive and controlling behaviour and two counts of rape.

The case had been brought after his wife, Tarryn Baird, 34, took her own life in 2017.

Prior to her death, she made allegations that Trybus had been abusive to her.

Trybus’s defence argued that Baird had made false allegations because she was “bored and lonely”, and because she had been “desperately seeking help” for her mental health issues.

Trybus, 44, denied all of the charges and said he had been unaware of his wife’s allegations before her death.

He told the court: “I feel bad she was in such a place that she was saying these things – what was going through her mind?”

Baird had lived with PTSD from witnessing violent incidents in South Africa where the couple had lived before they moved to the UK.

After the trial, Proudman criticised Trybus’s defence for aspects of its closing speech.

The defence had questioned how Trybus was “supposed to answer the allegations of a ghost from 10 years ago”.

Katy Thorne KC, Trybus’s barrister, said: “They are totally obsessed with a dogma, this whole case is based on an agenda that when women allege violence and domestic abuse, they must be telling the truth.”

Proudman said she felt the comments meant that a “dead woman was put on trial”, while “the defendant faded into the background”.

Thorne said Proudman’s remarks did not “accurately reflect what was said to the jury” and showed a “limited understanding of the facts of the case”.

Proudman, who practises family law, had not been in court to hear evidence during the trial.

Trybus’s defence argued the case had echoes of the French Revolution, where innocent people had been swept up by a cause that was ultimately trying to achieve a positive aim.

In response, Thorne said: “This trial was prosecuted by the most senior prosecutor in the country and presided over by a senior high court judge whose background is in discrimination law.

However, Janaya Walker, the interim director of End Violence Against Women, said that many women were “treated as suspects” by the criminal justice system after dying by suicide.

Walker added that “harmful sexist beliefs about women are still widely prevalent, with women treated as suspects even after they’ve died by suicide”.

A spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said: “We respect the decision of the jury. They have heard all the evidence and come to their verdicts.”

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123.

On the day of Baird’s death, Trybus said it was “the worst day of my life, just absolutely terrible, I don’t know how else to describe it”.

The case was heard in court room 12 over several weeks.

The CPS has yet to see a successful case in a jury trial for a prosecution of manslaughter after a suspected suicide related to domestic abuse.