Hi °C | Lo °C Evil killer Jacqueline Crymble, whose greed lead her to murder her husband Paul along with her lover, was yesterday stripped of the monies they plotted to inherit.
Crown Court judge Mr Justice McLaughlin instead ordered that Mr Crymble's grieving children, a girl and boy, should be paid the benefits from his murder, not his wife and killer.
Paying tribute to their 35-year-old father, as a successful breadwinner who'd managed to obtain a university degree and a very good job in aerospace, the judge said it was only fair that the children be compensated.
"I have no doubt that the pure financial loss to these children is huge - let alone the loss they've suffered at an emotional level," said Mr Justice McLaughlin.
Had 35-year-old Crymble and her 31-year-old lover Roger Ferguson gotten away with the Fathers' Day murder of her husband Paul three years ago, the pair stood to gain just over £300,000.
However, following investigations by the PSNI's Financial Investigations Unit, it has emerged that out of this figure, the true realisable assets is just short of £90,000, which will now be put in trust for the children.
In making the orders, one of confiscating the monies from Crymble and the other of compensation to her children, Mr Justice McLaughlin said it brought to an end what was for him "a very sad affair".
Earlier the Newry judge, sitting in Belfast, said had Mr Crymble died from natural causes or murdered by someone else, his widowed wife would have received all of his estate, save for the bequeathed legacies he'd made to the children.
"Clearly the policy of the law is to ensure that a perpetrator should not benefit from the death of his or her victim," said Mr Justice McLaughlin.
In the circumstances of this case, he added, his task was to determine whether Crymble benefited from the murder.
"I am satisfied that upon the death of Paul Crymble, his widow, Jacqueline Crymble obtained an interest in all his property," said the judge.
Crymble, jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years, is currently awaiting her appeal against her conviction for the murder of her husband.
He was killed, in the words of the prosecution, out of her greed and lust for money.
