Husband spared jail for dousing wife in lighter fluid and trying to set her on fire

A husband who tried to set his wife on fire after dousing her with lighter fluid has avoided being sent to jail.

Former naval officer Christopher Mayhew shouted ‘I’m going to burn down the house’ as he sprayed the bottle of flammable liquid over his wife’s t-shirt.

Sarah Mayhew ran away from him as he followed her with a lit lighter, pointing it at her on September 25.

She managed to get away, and her husband was arrested and charged with administering a noxious substance with intent to annoy and aggrieve and threats to destroy or damage property.

In a victim impact statement read out at Reading Crown Court, Sarah Mayhew said: ‘I genuinely believed he was going to set fire to me. I was absolutely petrified. I really thought he was going to light me up.

‘I am relieved my husband is no longer in the house. He was a brooding presence which could erupt into anger at any point.

‘I feel like I do not know the person he has become. I believed he would never hurt me physically, but now I am not so sure.’

The court heard the couple had agreed to end their 24-year marriage and Mayhew had taken it badly.

Judge Edward Burgess told him: ‘You have had difficult in accepting that the marriage was over.

‘In my view, you felt to a degree emasculated by the circumstances, but that plainly represents no excuse whatsoever for this deeply unacceptable behaviour.’

Mayhew had started drinking a bottle of gin every day after the marriage broke down, and had done so before he committed his crimes at the family home in Sandhurts, Berkshire.

Judge Burgess continued: ‘These are both very serious offences as I think you appreciate, offences that were fraught with the risk of causing very serious injury if not death to your wife, from whom you are now estranged.

‘You appreciate the relationship is well and truly over. I accept that you acted in a way that was out of character – of course there was a background, in particular in recent times, of verbal abuse by you.’

The judge spared him jail, giving him a jail term of 18 months suspended for 18 months, which included a requirement for him to attend 32 sessions of a Building Better Relationships programme.

Mayhew also had to complete 25 days of Rehabilitation Activity Requirement and 200 hours of unpaid work.

He was made subject to a restraining order for five years, preventing him from contacting his ex-wife, attending the family home or an address on Thames Valley Park Drive in Reading.