A 52-year-old carpenter from Surrey has been found guilty of murdering his wife in a rare retrial, eight years after being acquitted.
Robert Rhodes killed 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.
It has since emerged that this was a “cover-up”, after the couple’s child came forward with new evidence that Rhodes killed Ms Rhodes, and they were involved in the murder too.
In 2021, the child, who was under the age of 10 at the time of the murder, told police they had been manipulated into lying about the true version of events by their father.
Both Rhodes and the child were found with knife wounds at the scene, which were initially claimed to have been inflicted in an attack by Ms Rhodes.
The child’s new account stated that after Rhodes killed his wife, he inflicted two wounds to his scalp before instructing the child to inflict two more on their father’s back. He then cut his own child’s arm so deeply that it required stitches under general anaesthetic.
Under the double jeopardy rule a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime, unless new and compelling evidence comes out after an acquittal or conviction for serious offences.
On Friday, jurors at Inner London Crown Court convicted Rhodes of murder and child cruelty.
He was also found guilty of perverting the course of justice and two counts of perjury.
Rhodes will be sentenced on 16 January.
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.
Surrey Police told Sky News that the child, who was of primary school age at the time and is below the age of criminal responsibility, was “groomed” by Rhodes into lying.
The Crown Prosecution Service said “the child’s part in the plan was that they would distract the mother by saying to the mother ‘hold out your hands, I’ve got a surprise for you’, and the child would then put a drawing into the hands of the mother”.
Rhodes then cut his wife’s throat. She was found lying face down in a pool of blood in the dining room.
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
Libby Clark, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service’s South East Area Complex Casework Unit, said the child showed “great bravery and strength” in coming forward with the truth.
She said: “The child has grown up with the dawning realisation, I would say, that they were part of a plan. They were complicit in the murder of the mother, Dawn Rhodes.”
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Legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg said there are “very few cases” where a retrial like this happens.
He said: “It’s very unusual. I don’t think there’s been a case that I can think of where a witness who was present at the scene of the crime has come forward and given evidence, which has led to a conviction.”
