Nurse jailed for life for wife's 'car crash' murder
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A nurse who murdered his long suffering wife and tried to make it look like a car crash is beginning life behind bars today.
Brent Mott, 32, strangled wife Kate, 35, at their home in Everard Road, Southport, in the early hours of January 21 this year in a row about their divorce.
Today, the Recorder of Liverpool, Henry Globe QC jailed him for a minimum of 25 years.
Mott, dressed in a blue suit and shirt, did not react on hearing his sentence.
The couple were in the final stages of their divorce when Mott "lost all self control" during an argument.
The killer claimed that after returning from a night out, his wife attacked him with a peeler knife.
He told the court in trying to disarm her, they fell on to the marble hearth of their fireplace and she banged her head.
Mott, who worked with his wife at Southport Hospital, then strangled her with the pyjama top she was wearing.
Police do not believe the account.
Injuries to the side of the victim's head were caused by a weapon, a doctor concluded, and the ligature marks around her neck were caused by something else, the prosecution believe.
After killing her, Mott changed the mother-of-two's clothing and put her in their Ford Focus - with a bottle of vodka and pills she had been taking for her bad back.
He drove to a farmer's field in nearby Scarisbrick where he superficially damaged the car and abandoned his wife's body.
The couple's unhappy marriage had been falling apart for more than a year.
Mott was obsessed with the absence of sex in their lives - and complained about it to anyone who would listen, including his mother-in-law, a workman and mutual colleagues.
The victim began divorce proceedings alleging he regularly sexually abused her, tried to watch her in the shower and was verbally abusive in front of their children Olivia, then aged three, and Lewis, 13 months.
A post-mortem examination showed his semen was inside her.
He claimed that the day before he killed her, Mrs Mott suggested they enjoyed one "last fling" and had consensual, unprotected sex.
The judge said that was "inconceivable".
"You raped her at or around the time of killing her," he said.
"Only you know exactly when it was and in what precise circumstances you raped her in connection with when you strangled her."
Mr Globe ran through the horrors Mrs Mott faced at her husband's hands.
In early 2009 the pair separated and Mott moved out. But he returned that September because he could not afford to live alone.
The victim obtained a court order banning him from her makeshift bedroom in the living room.
But the injunction did not worry Mott.
The judge said: "Put simply, you couldn't keep your hands off Kate who was constantly being mauled by you."
The pair saw two relationship counsellors in a bid to save their marriage - which was being wrecked by Mott's drunken "lifestyle, insecurities, jealousy and obsessive behaviour".
"It was obvious to them that your behaviour was destroying the love that Kate had ever had for you.
"That is why she no longer wanted to have a sexual relationship with you and that's why the two of you didn't in fact have sexual intercourse for almost 18 months prior to the day or her death."
The hours before Mott murdered his wife were spent boozing and transferring 20 naked pictures of his wife from one of his phones to another.
"You came home determined to have sexual intercourse with Kate come what may," said the judge.
"This was an intelligent mature woman who had already arranged for the locks to be changed upon your imminent departure, so desperate was she to see you leave.
"She wouldn't have willingly allowed you to have had sexual intercourse with her and risk becoming pregnant in the course of that intercourse."