KIM GALBRAITH

WOMAN'S LIFE SENTENCE FOR SHOOTING HUSBAND REDUCED TO 10 YEARS

A woman who shot and killed her sleeping policeman husband was sentenced to 10 years in jail yesterday after having her murder conviction quashed on appeal.

Kim Galbraith, aged 33, had initially been sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty in 1999 of murdering her husband, Ian, at their cottage in Furnace, Argyll.

At the trial, her lawyers argued for a conviction of culpable homicide, the Scottish equivalent of manslaughter, claiming she had killed him after years of sexual abuse and torture.

However, the jury rejected this plea, and the trial judge required evidence of mental illness for diminished responsibility.

This ruling was overturned on appeal, setting a Scottish legal precedent, and Galbraith was ordered to face a retrial.

Yesterday, at the High Court in Glasgow, she pleaded guilty to culpable homicide on the grounds of diminished responsibility, with the judge accepting her plea because she was of an abnormal mental condition, preoccupied with her belief that she was being sexually abused by her husband, despite no objective evidence.

The original trial reported that Galbraith shot her husband, a former Metropolitan policeman, on January 13, 1999.

She initially fabricated a story about intruders shooting him after raping her, but police found her story false, and she admitted killing him.

When asked why she had lied, she said, "Because that's what my whole life has been." Lady Smith sentenced her to 10 years, backdated to January 14, 1999, the day she was first taken into custody.