Keep Robert Brown in jail

This cold-blooded killer poses a danger to women. To grant him release on parole would be a grave miscarriage of justice

Robert Brown will be back out of prison in a few weeks time unless the Justice Secretary intervenes and blocks his release.

Joanna Simpson’s family have been told that Brown will be released on parole in the week beginning November 6 after serving just 13 years for brutally killing Joanna within earshot of their two young children.

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During 40 years of campaigning to end of domestic violence, I have met many grieving, traumatised mothers. 

But the pain etched into the face of Diana Parkes after her daughter's death in 2010, at the hands of Robert Brown, was horrific beyond description. I shall never forget it.

Brown, a British Airways captain, bludgeoned his wife Joanna with a claw hammer, hitting her 14 times and obliterating her features, and then refused to divulge the location of the body. It later transpired he had hidden it in a grave he'd dug earlier in Windsor Great Park.

Everything about the killing is horrific and distressing – the brutality, the degree of planning and, most of all, the way Brown was able to evade a murder conviction by pleading guilty to manslaughter.

This deeply manipulative man, who had lied to his wife and family for years, was able to exert the same coercive control over the police, courts and the entire criminal justice system.

He persuaded the Crown Prosecution Service that his heinous crime was somehow a lesser offence, because of a spurious mental health condition. Now, although he was sentenced to 26 years in prison, he is being considered for release after serving half his sentence.

Supposedly he would be monitored by the probation service. But nothing any probation officer could do would deter Brown from carrying out more acts of violence against women if he chose.

Robert Brown belongs in jail. To set him free would be a deep injustice.

I say this as a comparative liberal on prison reform. It's fair to say I believe that at least half the people, both women and men, currently behind bars have no compelling reason to be there. Incarcerating them serves no purpose to society.

But Brown is a different case. He represents a clear and violent danger, to women in general and to Joanna's family in particular. It makes no sense to value his freedom over their safety.

There's a wider reason to highlight this case. Robert Brown is a textbook example of a domestic killer – if the textbook was called How To Get Away With Murder.

He used all the classic excuses, and exploited all the loopholes that are available to men who kill their partners and then depict themselves as the real victims. If Brown is freed, that will encourage countless other men to copy him. 

Conversely, if he is kept in jail, where he so richly deserves to be, his example will serve as a warning to all those who are arrogant enough to think they can kill and escape the consequences.

Brown and Joanna had been married for eight years when their relationship broke down in 2007. Three years of acrimonious divorce proceedings ensued, as Brown used intimidation, lies, bullying and threats to extort as much money as possible from Joanna and her business.

His behaviour was fuelled, I believe, by an insane anger that his wife could be allowed to keep anything. This is a common pattern among controlling men. Unwilling to compromise, they brood over everything they are losing, and will go to any lengths to prevent a woman from keeping what is hers – whether that's money, the family home or custody of the children.

Often, her parents and other relatives become targets for his anger too. This was true for Brown, who left Joanna's mother Diana in no doubt that she should fear him.

On Sunday October 31, Brown went to Joanna's home in Ascot with a hammer concealed in his children's homework bag. He hurled grievances in her face, and then battered her to death – with his children within earshot, two rooms away. 

He then bundled the body into the boot of his car. His nine-year-old daughter asked him if he was going to call an ambulance for their mummy. Instead, he took them to his own mother's house before burying Joanna in a grave that he'd dug a full year earlier. 

If that's not the definition of a premeditated killing, I don't know what else it can be.

The following day, Brown called police and reported a 'domestic'. When officers arrived, they saw traces of blood and arrested him on suspicion of murder.

For the next two days, Brown refused to tell police where the body was buried. Diana Parkes told me this was the most devastating aspect of the aftermath. With a mother's instinct, she was certain Joanna had been killed, but could not start to grieve properly until the remains were returned to her family. To see the pain this woman was suffering affected me deeply.

Brown's sadism was deliberate and cold-blooded. He had nothing to gain from refusing to co-operate. But he took vicious satisfaction in hurting Diana, now that he was unable to do anything more to hurt Joanna.

In every case I've known where a man disfigures a woman's face as he kills her, it has been a deliberate act of violence aimed at the people who loved her. These men are denying parents, children and siblings the opportunity of one last goodbye. I can think of no more hateful expression of misogyny.

At his trial, Brown twisted the truth in every way he could. He obtained a psychiatric report diagnosing him with an 'adjustment disorder' – a form of mental illness which provokes disproportionate reactions to emotional stress. However, adjustment disorders almost never result in fatal violence.

He claimed to be traumatised by seeing a suicide in San Francisco, and said he had considered suicide himself after killing Joanna. He also cited a miscarriage suffered by his girlfriend at the time, and complained that he had financial worries.

Diana told me she could not fathom how Brown was allowed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter – especially as the prosecution knew he had previously threatened Joanna with a knife.

I was disgusted, but sadly not surprised. There are numerous similar cases where men have manipulated the courts by blaming mental illness. One example among many is that of Anthony Williams, a 70-year-old man from Cwmbran in South Wales, who choked his wife Ruth to death in the porch of their home in 2020.

Williams told police that he was suffering from depression brought on by lockdown. 'It wasn't murder,' he said. 'I just flipped, it wasn't me. I wouldn't hurt a fly, I'm not like that. I don't know what came over me.'

He admitted manslaughter by diminished responsibility and was jailed for five years.

Equally, I have numerous cases in my files where women have been driven to kill their violent, coercive male partners – and nothing they said in mitigation could dissuade the court from imposing a life sentence for murder. 

Women who have suffered years of abuse, women who are broken and terrified by trauma, women who believe they have no choice but to kill, to protect their own lives and those of their children. They will be convicted of murder, while men who commit premeditated killings are shown leniency.

There is a deep imbalance in our criminal justice system. Men and women are treated very differently. To let Robert Brown walk free would be an appalling miscarriage of justice.