Man whose cheating wife tried to murder him says: 'I still love her'
Raymond Weatherall was victim of ‘cold, calculated and chilling cruelty’, judge says
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A terminally ill man who survived three murder plots arranged by his adulterous wife, including being shot in the face, has said he still loves her.
Raymond Weatherall was shot in the jaw with a rifle by the daughter of his best friend Glenn Pollard, who had been having an affair with his wife Hayley Weatherall.
Weatherall, Pollard and Heather Pollard were each jailed for life with minimum terms of 15 years or more on Tuesday for conspiring to murder Mr Weatherall.
Despite being the target of what a judge called “chilling cruelty” at the hands of the trio Mr Weatherall, 53, who has several brain tumours, said he still loved his wife.
“I love Hayley. I always have and always will,” he told The Sun.
He also described himself as a “tough old bugger” who has not lost his sense of humour.
“I’ve managed to survive a lot. I feel like a cat with nine lives ... I can still laugh,” he said.
Weatherall, a mother of three, wept in court as she was handed a minimum jail term of 15 years at Maidstone Crown Court on Tuesday.
The 32-year-old was sentenced alongside her lover Pollard, 49, who will serve a minimum of 17 years in prison, and his daughter Heather, who was jailed for at least 15 years.
All three had denied conspiracy to murder but were found guilty by a jury at Maidstone Crown Court on 15 November.
Judge Adele Williams said: “This was cruelty of a high degree. Cold, calculated and chilling cruelty.
“You conspired to murder a man because you believed he stood in your way.”
The affair between Pollard, of West Stourmouth in Kent, and Weatherall, from Ash in the same county, provided the motive for the campaign, the court heard. The pair had been sending each other sexually explicit text messages and photos.
There were “three settled, determined and sophisticated” attempts to murder Mr Weatherall, in which Glenn Pollard was the “prime mover”, the judge said.
The first attempt, she said, was when Heather Pollard, now 20, went to shoot him in Rainham in November 2017 as instructed by her father, but was unable to do it. Judge Williams said the young woman, aged 19 at the time, was “desperate” for her father’s approval and took part in the conspiracy with “enthusiasm”.
The second attempt took place nine days later when Heather Pollard waited for five hours on the bank of the river Stour with her father’s rifle until she could take a shot at Mr Weatherall, who was at Sandwich Marina.
Mr Weatherall was hit in the face, with the bullet narrowly missing his jugular vein and carotid artery. He bled profusely from the mouth, nose and ear. The judge said Weatherall knew of the plot to shoot her husband, sending a text to Pollard from the hospital which said: “They didn’t do a very good job, he’s still here.”
Mr Weatherall still has most of the bullet lodged in his left jaw, as removing it would be too difficult.
The third attempt was in December 2017 when Heather Pollard used the internet to research how to kill the diabetic victim with an insulin overdose.
Weatherall told police that Glenn Pollard had given her four sleeping tablets to crush into her husband’s food.
She said he had also given her £500 and told her to inject Mr Weatherall with a full pen of insulin when he was asleep, but she could not go through with it.
The judge said: “By the way in which each of you participated in this conspiracy, I believe that each of you will remain a serious danger to the public for a period which cannot be reliably estimated at the present time.
“I also conclude that such will be the revulsion and horror felt by right-thinking members of the public at this crime that only a sentence of imprisonment for life is justified.”
Additional reporting by agencies