Jobless alcoholic ‘snapped’ and throttled wife to death found guilty of manslaughter - May never be released

Published: 27 August 2010
by DAVID ST GEORGE

A VIOLENT husband who throttled his wife in the basement of their Finsbury Park home was jailed for a minimum of eight years on Monday. 

Jobless alcoholic Robert David Tyler was told by Old Bailey judge Jeffrey Pegden, QC, that he may be regarded as “too dangerous” by the parole board to ever be released.

Jurors cleared him of murdering school assistant Julie McKinley – she would have been 41 last Friday – by strangling her with one hand.

But he was convicted of her manslaughter on the grounds of provocation, after a four-day retirement of the panel.

He served only weeks of a 12-month term for violence towards her when he was released early.

The victim made the fatal decision to take him back once more and it cost her her life. 

“This couple could not live with or without each other,” defence QC Graham Trembath said.

Tyler, 47, claimed he grabbed her by the throat when she told him that the youngest of their four children, a 22-month-old boy, was not his, and taunted him about being unfaithful.

The baby was asleep in his cot beside his mother’s bed where she lay naked and vulnerable when she was attacked. 

Julie had returned home to Stroud Green Road after a family New Year party and Tyler left her dead and lying in bed in the basement. 

He left before 2am and locked the front door after kissing the children goodbye.

Later, after buying more drink, he phoned the police to confess. 

He told officers – who had to use a battering ram to enter the address – that they should take care because the children were in.

Tyle was not arrested until two days later, drinking at the bus   stop. 

“Why are you being so decent? I’m a murderer you know,” he asked uniformed officers before bursting into tears. 

He said he had no future and added: “If I get 15 years it does not make up for taking a life.”

Michael Shorrock, QC, prosecuting, said Tyler was “violent, jealous and possessive”.

“It was his temper that caused him to kill her,” he told the jury.

Julie, a grandmother with a daughter, 22, in addition doted on her three daughters, eight, six and four, and son.

Family and friends knew her as bubbly, full of fun and “much loved”. 

Tyler had been in a “turbulent” 16-year relationship and they had been married for three years.

“I lost it and snapped and grabbed her throat and squeezed,” Tyler maintained.

Julie’s sister Jackie described in an impact statement the family’s devastation at losing a kind, popular and much-loved member – remembered always because “she made everyone laugh”.

The court heard that Tyler, in care as a child of two and a drinker from the age of 13, had 44 previous criminal convictions, 14 of them for violence, and had been jailed for attacks on Julie. 

She knew that Tyler was “the biggest alcoholic that ever walked” but repeatedly allowed him back into her life.

Mr Trembath said Tyler would often spend weeks or months away from home living rough with street drinkers. 

His “tragedy” was coming from a totally dysfunctional family and being moved “from pillar to post” as a child which created a severe personality disorder and “explosive” temper. 

Judge Pegden told Tyler that Julie had posed “no threat” to him before he killed her.