A man has been jailed for 29-and-a-half years for murdering his wife after their child revealed they were coerced into a plot to help him kill her.
Robert Rhodes refused to attend his sentencing – because he maintains his innocence.
Addressing this directly Judge Mrs Justice Ellenbogen said the defendant had now added “cowardice” to his list of characteristics.
She described his acts as “wicked” and “callous”, and said Rhodes murdered his wife in the “most brutal way” with “significant force”, adding that his actions showed “significant premeditation and planning”.
The 52-year-old carpenter from Withleigh, Devon, was convicted of murdering his estranged wife, Dawn Rhodes, by slitting her throat with a knife at their family home in Redhill, Surrey, in June 2016.
He was previously found not guilty after a trial at the Old Bailey in 2017, where he convinced jurors that he had acted in self-defence during an argument.
Police started to seriously doubt these claims when the couple’s child came forward with new evidence in 2021, initially disclosed in therapy, that Rhodes had killed their mother and that they were involved in the murder too.
The child, who was under the age of 10 at the time of the murder, told Surrey Police they had been coerced into helping Rhodes kill her, and that they were manipulated by their father into lying about the true version of events.
The child’s new testimony meant Rhodes’s acquittal was quashed in November 2024, and permission was granted for a rare retrial in 2025, where the jury unanimously found him guilty of murdering Dawn Rhodes.
After more than 22 hours of deliberation, Robert Rhodes was also found guilty of child cruelty, perverting the course of justice, and two counts of perjury.
Previously, a person could not be retried for the same offence after being cleared. But the double jeopardy law in England and Wales changed in 2005 to allow a second trial for the most serious of offences, including murder, if new and compelling evidence came to light after a verdict.
The double jeopardy rule is a legal principle that prevents a person from being tried twice for the same crime after they have been acquitted or convicted.
It’s a protection for that person from harassment. However, the law permits a retrial where someone was acquitted of a serious offence, but new and compelling evidence has since come to light which indicates the person might actually be guilty.
In this case, the new evidence from the child was compelling enough for the Court of Appeal to quash the acquittal and a retrial to take place.
Crucially, the child’s evidence was so compelling that the Court of Appeal agreed Rhodes needed to be tried again.
The retrial at Inner London Crown Court heard how the plot to kill involved the child – who cannot be named for legal reasons – telling their mother that they had drawn her a picture.
She was then told to close her eyes and hold out her hands, before the child left the room, and Rhodes came in to murder her.
On 2 June 2016, police found Dawn Rhodes lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood with her throat cut to the extent that all the structures in her neck had been severed.
During the retrial, eight years later, the court heard how the marriage had been in difficulty prior to Dawn Rhodes’s death, and Robert Rhodes had filed for a divorce.
Both Robert Rhodes and the child were found with knife wounds at the scene, which were initially claimed to have been inflicted in an attack by Dawn Rhodes at the original trial.
Robert Rhodes said they were injured after she “flipped like the Hulk” during a row at their family home.
At the second trial, jurors heard that these wounds were actually part of a “cover-up”, to make it look like the pair had sustained self-defence wounds.
After he killed his wife, Rhodes self-inflicted two wounds to his scalp before instructing the child to inflict two more on his back.
He then cut his own child’s arm so deeply that it required stitches under general anaesthetic.
The child was under the age of criminal responsibility at the time, and holds no criminal responsibility for their role in the attack.
2 June 2016 – Dawn Rhodes killed
5 June 2016 – Robert Rhodes charged with murder
2 May 2017 – first trial begins
30 May 2017 – not guilty verdict
18 November 2021 – child gives therapist new account
Late November 2021 – police reopen case
4 June 2024 – Robert Rhodes rearrested and charged the next day
7 November 2024 – Rhodes’s acquittal quashed
2 October 2025 – second trial begins
12 December 2025 – Rhodes is found guilty of murder
They told police that during supervised contact with Rhodes in 2016 and 2017, while he was on bail after being charged with murder, he had told them that they had “got some things wrong” and continued to give them instructions to stick to the plan.
Rhodes even hid a phone at his mother’s house for when the child visited, on which he would leave messages for the child, reminding them about the agreement they had.
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