Abusive Husband Jailed 8 Years for Causing Wife's Suicide

A Scottish court has delivered a first-of-its-kind verdict in a domestic abuse case that ended with a woman jumping from a motorway bridge. Forty-year-old Lee Milne was sentenced to eight years in prison after being found guilty of culpable homicide in the death of his wife, 28-year-old Kimberly Milne, who died after falling from a bridge onto the A90 in Dundee in July 2023 and being hit by several vehicles. Jurors ruled Lee Milne's sustained abuse made him criminally responsible, even though Kimberly Milne jumped herself, reports the BBC. Prosecutors detailed 18 months of escalating violence, including choking, hair-pulling, and repeated assaults, backed by witness accounts and CCTV showing her cowering and trying to get away from him on the night she died. Lee Milne was at the time out on bail and banned from contacting her, reports the Guardian.

Lee Milne was also convicted of separate domestic abuse charges and will be supervised for three years after release. The case, described by Scotland's Crown Office as "landmark," tested whether an abuser can be held liable when a partner takes their own life. Kimberly Milne described a 2023 attack to police thusly, per the Guardian: "Lee repeatedly punched my ribs and I was begging him not to hurt me but he was not listening. I felt unsafe so I decided not to leave that night. I slept with a knife under my pillow as I was so frightened of him." A judge told Lee Milne that his wife had reached "a point of despair" because of his actions. It later emerged he had been placed on the sex offenders' register for sexually assaulting two young boys.