00:00:03
[fireworks] NARRATOR: On New Year's
Eve, 2017, as revelers across the country
counted down to midnight,
00:00:10
David Clark became enraged
with a WhatsApp message from his wife, Melanie. And then he picked up a knife.
00:00:17
BENJAMIN AINA: Why would a man
leave his own separate bedroom with a knife, in the
course of an argument,
00:00:23
and then go to his wife's room? NARRATOR: Is this the final
play in a marriage fraught
00:00:28
with abuse,
infidelity, and rows? Even when they
are dysfunctional, and they've broken
up and separated
00:00:36
or they're seeing other
people, they are still having sex with each other. NARRATOR: Thrown into a volatile
marriage, a lesbian fling,
00:00:43
and a chance for blackmail. A sexual encounter
had taken place. She told her husband
out of a sense of guilt
00:00:53
and out of a sense of shame. It gave him control
back, because he was going to threaten to expose her.
00:00:59
He threatened to tell everybody. NARRATOR: Playing out
in a picturesque corner of middle England, a
drama to the death.
00:01:07
[theme music] Melanie and David Clark
in 2011 settled in England after a life-changing decision.
00:01:40
They were both
from South Africa. They met in South Africa. She already had children
from a previous relationship.
00:01:49
NARRATOR: They had seen too
much crime to feel comfortable in parts of that country, so
a small, middle England town
00:01:54
looked just right for them. TRISTAN HARRIS:
Bromsgrove is, you know, it's a small commuter town.
00:02:00
It's a market town. People come here because they
want a nice place to live. They want their--
their dream life.
00:02:06
NARRATOR: The Clarks lived
in a place called Stoke Prior on the edge of Bromsgrove.
00:02:10
Safe, clean air, good
schools, the ideal place for a family of six to settle. TRISTAN HARRIS: It's
a lovely village,
00:02:19
picturesque countryside. It's got canals. It's got a parish council. It's got a village hall.
00:02:27
It's got a great
community spirit, and I think they would have
been looking for that--
00:02:30
that quintessentially
English village life. NARRATOR: When they
had married in 2005,
00:02:36
Melanie and David
were both enjoying a second chance at love. They had a familiarity,
because they'd known
00:02:42
each other as young people. And even though they got married
to other people, when they
00:02:46
reconnected, that shared history
is quite a powerful connector in relationships.
00:02:52
They'd both gone off
their own separate ways for many, many years. Melanie had married and
had had four children.
00:02:57
Both going through
divorces at the same time, they encountered
each other again and formed a relationship.
00:03:03
We tend to be less
idealistic going into a second relationship. We make compromises, you
know, because, you know,
00:03:12
you've been through
a relationship. You know that most relationships
are about compromise.
00:03:17
So they both would
have gone in perhaps seeing the faults of the other
person and thinking, yes, OK.
00:03:23
I accept that. And it's only later on that
perhaps Melanie would have seen that the eccentricities
in David were
00:03:32
actually very difficult to deal
with and hid bigger problems. NARRATOR: Benjamin Aina is a
leading Queen's Council who
00:03:39
would one day become very
familiar with the story of Mr. and Mrs. Clark. He was very regimented.
00:03:46
When he first met Melanie,
he had his own way of doing things, like many people.
00:03:52
Even though he was
regimented, he and his wife got on to begin with
at the beginning.
00:03:59
She knew he was regimented, and
she was able to cope with that, and there weren't difficulties.
00:04:08
David Clark was ex-military. He was a medic in the
South African armed forces. When he moved to
the UK, he began
00:04:16
working in a chartered
surveyors office and later became
an estate agent. NARRATOR: The life
led by the Clarks
00:04:22
could not have become more
standard, middle England. Bromsgrove was affordable,
and the nearby tourist
00:04:28
mecca of
Stratford-on-Avon became the place where David worked. He was an estate agent
and good at it, intimately
00:04:35
knowing the selling
points of properties that he would market. David Clark was a detail man.
00:04:42
He was just a man
who was very tidy. His shirts had to be
in a particular way. His ties had to be in a
particular way, had to be
00:04:50
stored in a particular way. There's not a doubt
in my mind that David Clark was a particular type
of controlling individual.
00:05:00
There's lots of evidence to
show us what type of person. He was he was obsessive in
his neatness and in his order.
00:05:09
NARRATOR: When David
and Melanie married, they had become a family of six. David's previously well-ordered
world instantly shattered.
00:05:17
When he was entering into a
relationship where she already had a number of
children, and he-- he was
00:05:25
happy to enter into that arena. So he knew what
he was taking on. The step-parenting
relationships
00:05:32
can be quite challenging. You know, you're walking into
an already set family unit,
00:05:37
and there are different
kinds of expectations on you, as a
stepparent, and it can
00:05:40
be quite a challenging
and stressful experience. NARRATOR: Even more challenging,
perhaps, for a man obsessed
00:05:46
with order and routine. He would very easily become
angry with his children. His anger would be demonstrated
by insulting them, swearing
00:05:57
at them, bursting their
balls in the garden because it hadn't
been cleared away.
00:06:04
It even-- to one extent when
they had friends around, swearing at the-- their
guests because one of them
00:06:13
had left a door open. NARRATOR: Things were tense
inside the Clark home. It's always very difficult
with a controlling person
00:06:23
like this when they
are in a relationship with somebody and stepchildren. They don't have always
a great affinity
00:06:31
with their biological children. Bring in stepchildren
and the whole thing gets a lot more difficult.
00:06:38
It sounds very much like
David had a very short fuse. His desire for order,
his desire for routine
00:06:45
meant that living with four
children and a wife who didn't share his desire for
that type of routine
00:06:53
meant that he was
an easy target. Small things could
cause an explosion, and we often see this
in domestic situations.
00:07:02
NARRATOR: David might have
tried to exert control over Melanie and
her children, but he
00:07:07
was not always successful. She's not a shrinking violet. She's somebody who
stands up for herself.
00:07:13
Melanie doesn't
present as what we like to think of as our
typical domestic abuse victim.
00:07:21
She's not quiet. She's not submissive. She's not in the corner. She stands up for herself.
00:07:28
She's a very normal,
confident woman. She would fight back. She would give him push
back, and, of course,
00:07:34
he didn't like it. This was a tempestuous
and toxic relationship. NARRATOR: Melanie refused
to accept her husband's
00:07:41
rules and regulations. In fact, she rebelled
against them. A marriage which had
started as an answer
00:07:47
to a range of challenges
was disintegrating. Clark claimed that Melanie
would exploit his need
00:07:55
for order, that she
would deliberately mess up his shirts that he liked
to have in-- in order of color.
00:08:01
If he upset them, if
he was bullying them, and I can't imagine
he wasn't, it would have been very
easy to get back at him
00:08:09
by just quietly messing
with some of his routines. Perhaps, like he said,
moving his shirts out
00:08:19
of color order, for example. NEIL LANCASTER:
A man like David, who was meticulous,
ordered, routine-driven and
00:08:28
process-driven, it would
mean that he was extremely easy to put off his stride. You know, if simply by
reordering someone's shirts
00:08:38
or upsetting their sock drawer
you can send them into a rage, then it doesn't bode
well for the future.
00:08:45
NARRATOR: Living in a new
country, unable to control his wife and stepchildren
as he wanted,
00:08:50
David Clark's behavior became
increasingly unpleasant. Communication breakdowns
inside their Bromsgrove home
00:08:56
meant that the married
couple turned to their phones to exchange insults. The last three years
of the relationship
00:09:02
was all caught in a series of
WhatsApp and text messages, which the couple
sent to each other.
00:09:10
And what those
messages showed was that the relationship from about
2015 onwards became turbulent.
00:09:21
Mr. Clark had a bad temper. When they get into
arguments and altercations, there's this real escalation
where his language
00:09:29
becomes deeply offensive. And whilst it tends to
be projected at her, it does get spilled over and
get projected onto the children
00:09:37
as well. The wife of a friend
comes to visit them. I think she goes to the
toilet or goes to the kitchen.
00:09:44
She leaves the door
open, and he swears at her, shut that effing door. Shut that effing door.
00:09:49
So these are examples
of a man who-- he's not in control of himself. You wouldn't behave
like that if you were.
00:09:57
NARRATOR: The Clarks' marriage
had, by 2015, become toxic. From the very
beginning, this man was
00:10:03
dangerous in that relationship. It's almost that the-- the-- the way that they were,
the dynamic between them,
00:10:12
was kind of clouding
his dangerousness. If Melanie had been a
less confident person,
00:10:20
he would have been judged
differently much earlier on. NARRATOR: They had swapped
South Africa to escape violence,
00:10:26
but in picturesque
middle England, Mr. And Mrs. Clark were creating
their own brand of conflict.
00:10:32
How bad would things become? In 2015, 10 years into their
marriage, David Clark's
00:10:41
controlling behavior
began to take its toll on his wife, Melanie. Can you imagine
what it must have
00:10:47
been like to live with him? He drove her to drink. It must have been like walking
on eggshells, living with him,
00:10:55
waiting for him to just blow
up at the-- at the next thing. NARRATOR: Melanie
was often drunk.
00:11:02
David tried to
control her drinking. Clark claims that Melanie
had a problem with alcohol,
00:11:08
that she drank too
often and to excess, and that she wasn't a
pleasant person to be
00:11:13
around when she was drinking. He would do such things as
leave Post-It notes around
00:11:17
the house, reminding her
whether she was allowed to drink or not, not to smoke. When I look at the
relationship between Melanie
00:11:24
and Clark, there is a high level
of dysfunction and toxicity. She's drinking too much.
00:11:30
He's being relatively
abusive towards her. But there's also some
retaliation on her part.
00:11:37
NARRATOR: One of the things
Melanie found hardest to accept was the way David
treated her children.
00:11:42
The relationship between
Clark and Melanie's children was very strained. In particular, his relationship
with Melanie's youngest
00:11:50
daughter. Within the family home
there was a 14-year-old daughter of Melanie Clark.
00:11:59
And-- and she did not
have a good relationship with David Clark. He would regularly swear
at her and use the C-word.
00:12:11
That was one of the matters
that Melanie Clark drew to his-- his attention. That it's not appropriate for
you, in a parental position,
00:12:21
to be using the C-word when
swearing at a 14-year-old girl. As a mother, there is nothing
more distressing than watching
00:12:30
an adult who is meant to
take care of your children be abusive towards them. That must have been very,
very upsetting for her.
00:12:36
He would be
physically abusive. Melanie's eldest two
children reported how he would fly into a rage,
shouting and swearing at them.
00:12:44
BENJAMIN AINA: One of the
sons in the relationship, he would describe him as
being fat in a swearing way.
00:12:50
Was that really appropriate
for him in a parental way to be describing somebody
as a fat prick?
00:12:56
NARRATOR: In a town which was
supposed to help her children escape issues in South
Africa, Melanie Clark
00:13:01
told friends that she was
living in a worse world. She was not willing to accept
her husband's behavior.
00:13:07
She retaliates. She responds. She refuses to lie
down and take it. In 2015, 2016, Mrs. Clark
began to tell him that he
00:13:19
couldn't behave in this way. Melanie didn't hold back. She fought back. She would belittle him.
00:13:23
She would ridicule him. She would accuse him of having
a small penis and various ways
00:13:29
of mocking him. He was humiliated. Melanie was somebody who,
at times, was quite cruel.
00:13:36
We often get like
that in relationships, you know, even with
people that we love.
00:13:39
We say things that we know
really hurt and upset them, because we want
to, in that moment,
00:13:44
make them feel the pain
that we might be feeling. NEIL LANCASTER: In my opinion,
Melanie had every right
00:13:49
to fight back Why
should she be putting up with all these years of abuse? Why should she be putting
up with his control,
00:13:55
coercive control, all the time? She was a strong woman. She didn't hold back. NARRATOR: Despite so
much conflict and hurt,
00:14:02
the Clark's marriage
struggled on. There is an anger
in the relationship. They want to hurt each other.
00:14:08
They want to emotionally
abuse each other. And in spite of the fact that
that would suggest a pulling
00:14:13
apart of their
relationship, they seem so fixated
on wanting to hurt each other that clearly
somewhere within it they
00:14:21
want to be together. Because otherwise, they
would just walk away. So they're hurting each other.
00:14:26
They're punishing each other. It's fundamental
to that toxicity. They love each
other, but they hate
00:14:32
each other at the same time. NARRATOR: In 2016, not
long after celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary,
Melanie and David's marriage
00:14:39
hit a new low. The relationship seemed to
start deteriorating when Clark became completely convinced that
his wife was having an affair.
00:14:49
Now they-- he confronted
her with this, and she completely denied it. He decided that he
would forgive her,
00:14:55
whether or not she actually
did it, for something that she had or hadn't done. Now, I believe this
would have given
00:15:01
him a huge sense of
martyrdom, the sense that he's forgiven her. And you can see how that
might set him on the road
00:15:09
for the way things turned out. NARRATOR: Believing he had
been wronged by his wife,
00:15:13
David appears to
have decided that he had a free pass to do the same. He had at least two
affairs, and the relationship
00:15:20
deteriorated because
he tried to hide those affairs from his wife. And she found out, and he
kept on lying about it.
00:15:28
And she knew that he
was having affairs. NARRATOR: Melanie
was devastated, and the arguments between
them became even more bitter.
00:15:35
One led to David
asking for help. NEIL LANCASTER: So
in December 2016, David Clark called the police.
00:15:41
NARRATOR: Melanie had demanded
that he change his behavior. She wasn't going to
have him in the house,
00:15:46
going on dates websites
and having affairs. And he contacted the
police and said his wife
00:15:52
was trying to kill him. He said that she had
threatened to slash him with a knife, and he
even went to the extent
00:15:57
of saying he was going to
record it on his telephone. But then she wouldn't
say it again,
00:16:01
which seems preposterous to me. He told the police that
Melanie tried to control him,
00:16:06
and that she didn't let him
do the things he wanted to do. The police quickly
came to the conclusion
00:16:12
that this was nonsense. The police fully investigated. They found no
evidence that anything
00:16:17
had happened whatsoever. NARRATOR: The very next day,
another cry for attention,
00:16:21
a suicide threat. He also then said that
he was taking some pills and tried to kill himself.
00:16:27
Melanie was concerned enough
to call the paramedics to come and see him. NARRATOR: Amidst the gentle
fields of England's Cotswolds,
00:16:32
a story of not-so-gentle
domestic turmoil. It's really common
for controlling people,
00:16:38
especially at the point of
a really serious challenge like a separation,
to start using
00:16:45
every control method they can. And one of the most common
is a threat to kill yourself,
00:16:54
or even a kind of a para-suicide
attempt where you may cut yourself but not enough.
00:17:02
You may take some
pills but not enough. But it's very, very common way
at the point of a separation
00:17:09
of trying to gain
sympathy, trying to gain control
back over the person that you're separating from.
00:17:18
NARRATOR: For criminologist
Jane Monckton Smith, who has researched dozens
of domestic homicides,
00:17:23
this incident should have
been a clear red flag. Often a suicide threat in this
context made to control someone
00:17:34
is a veiled homicide
threat as well. And we always advise that
that's how it should be treated.
00:17:42
NARRATOR: Indeed, just a few
days later, David's abuse of Melanie turned physical.
00:17:46
This was on the
14th of December, so it was three days
after the alleged suicide.
00:17:52
He went into her bedroom and
he punched her in the chest. And there was an injury,
which was photographed by her
00:17:59
of the mark on her chest. And he would only
leave that bedroom when her sons came into the room
and said, dad, leave the room.
00:18:07
Leave mum alone. Come out. This is a sort of flavor of
where the relationship was
00:18:14
in December 2016. NARRATOR: At her wit's end,
Melanie kicked David out. David Clark would move out
periodically for a number
00:18:24
of weeks, days, whatever. He would then be
allowed to come back, but it was very much on
the basis of, you can stay
00:18:32
or you can go. He left the matrimonial home. But by March 2017, he was back. And the real issue,
the real complaint,
00:18:45
was that once he came back, his
wife was not prepared to have him having affairs.
00:18:51
So she said if you're
going to come back, I'm going to need to know
where you are on a daily basis.
00:18:57
I'm going to need to see what
was on your mobile phone. I'm going to need to see your--
00:19:02
your emails. And for a man who
liked to be in control, he found this very
difficult. And then
00:19:08
that was the real problem,
the real difficulty in the relationship. When a controlling person
gets into a relationship
00:19:15
with somebody, there are
rights and responsibilities. So the way they see it,
the rights are all theirs
00:19:23
and the responsibilities
are all their partners. So they will very often feel
completely justified in having
00:19:32
affairs outside relationships. But the other person only
has responsibilities, so it's their responsibility
to tolerate this.
00:19:42
Here was a man who
was having affairs and wanted to carry
on having affairs, wanted to carry on
going on dating websites
00:19:52
and stay in a matrimonial home. And she wasn't
prepared to have it. NARRATOR: In fact, during one
argument about his infidelity,
00:19:58
Melanie treated David to a
taste of his own medicine. Now at this stage, this
is an open relationship,
00:20:04
but so far it only seems
it's an open relationship on David's part. So Melanie is not
happy with this,
00:20:10
and strangely she makes
him sign a declaration saying that she's allowed to
have affairs with other people.
00:20:16
DR. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: I
think Melanie was incredibly frustrated with David Clark.
00:20:21
He was operating
a double standard. He was having affairs. He was saying to her, I don't
care if you have an affair,
00:20:30
and she kind of
called his bluff. Because he-- he was
controlling her, so she's saying, all right.
00:20:38
If you're serious,
write it down. NARRATOR: At the time, Melanie
may not have intended to act
00:20:44
on that written contract. But just a few months later,
she found herself calling
00:20:48
her husband's bluff, a sexual
clench, not with another man but with another woman.
00:20:55
The key thing here
is that she was having, maybe in his eyes, an affair
under his nose on terms
00:21:06
that he could not compete with. This is another woman. This isn't another man. NARRATOR: Already feeling
threatened by his wife's
00:21:13
refusal to buckle to his
controlling ways, was a lesbian fling about to bring things
to a head in the apparently
00:21:19
calm world of rural England? It was early in 2017 when
one of Melanie's children
00:21:30
made a decision to escape
the toxic atmosphere of the Clark family home. The fact that the youngest
daughter, the one who
00:21:37
was having real problems
with David Clark, moved out of the country,
went back to South Africa
00:21:43
to live with her father,
tells us that there were a lot of problems in that household.
00:21:48
Not just the relationship,
the household. As her presence had
caused Clark a great deal
00:21:56
of frustration, this, perhaps,
relieved some of the tension, and he stayed living with
Melanie in their home,
00:22:03
although they often
slept in separate rooms. In fact, Clark moved in to
Melanie's youngest daughter's
00:22:09
bedroom, a small room in
which he slept when he wasn't sharing Melanie's bed. People are often
in relationships
00:22:17
where they don't get on
well after a few years or many years, and
they stay together
00:22:24
for a variety of reasons. They might stay together
because of the-- because of the children.
00:22:29
And indeed, this
couple had adapted their lifestyle
so that they were sleeping in different bedrooms.
00:22:37
By the time we got to 2017,
they each had their own bedroom. NARRATOR: David Clark's
obsessions around the house,
00:22:43
meanwhile, were getting worse. Something of the
character of David can be seen by the way
he kept his bedroom.
00:22:49
Apparently, he would keep
cutlery and sharp knives, but in some type of an
order in his bedroom.
00:22:55
Not probably because of
arming himself, possibly just because that's how he was.
00:23:00
He had this strange character. The fact that he kept knives
within his room of itself
00:23:10
was not that important. Because one has to remember
he came from South Africa. That was where he
was brought up.
00:23:19
In South Africa, he was
entitled to own a gun. He was entitled to own knives. It's a different
regime than in England.
00:23:30
NARRATOR: It was a
sense of entitlement to have weapons nearby. That would become
very significant.
00:23:35
On the 28th of December, an
incident happens which will have lasting ramifications.
00:23:41
David's best friend
comes round for dinner, and he comes with his
30-year-old daughter.
00:23:46
There is a lot of drink
taken, drinking games, and then something happens later
on that evening that will have
00:23:53
effects that will enable David
to exert control on his wife for the remainder of her life.
00:23:59
One of Clark's best friends
came round for dinner. He brought with him his
daughter Katie, a journalist.
00:24:07
NARRATOR: That
simple fact throws more conflict to the
relationship in a way nobody
00:24:11
could have foretold. Whilst the men
were downstairs, the daughter and Mrs.
Clark were upstairs.
00:24:19
They obviously got on
very well, and they spent a considerable
amount of time upstairs,
00:24:24
and I think into the night
and into the morning. The 29th of December,
Melanie Clark
00:24:32
told her husband that she
had kissed the daughter, and from that a sexual
encounter had taken place.
00:24:44
She told her husband
out of a sense of guilt and out of a sense of shame. Now this gave David
everything he needed.
00:24:54
It gave him control back,
because he was going to threaten to expose her. He threatened to tell everybody.
00:24:59
He threatened to
tell Katie's father. It's something that
he can't control, doesn't understand, can't
compete on the same terms.
00:25:08
It must have been difficult for
him, but also opportunistic. It's something that he
could have used against her
00:25:19
to-- to leverage some control. BENJAMIN AINA: She
was embarrassed, and she made her
husband promise that he
00:25:28
would not tell any
family or friends about what had taken place. And Mr. Clark gave his promise
that he wouldn't do that.
00:25:39
They made up. They made love that
particular day. And the prosecution's case was
that he was now in control.
00:25:47
For the first time in a long
time, he was now in control. His wife had done something
that she considered was wrong.
00:25:55
She was asking him not to
reveal this to the family. She was indebted to
him for him agreeing,
00:26:02
and he was now in control. NARRATOR: Just three
days later, David saw his golden
opportunity to use
00:26:07
his newfound leverage to
score points against his wife. On New Year's Eve, Melanie's
oldest child drove Melanie
00:26:14
and Clark to a friend's house. They were in good spirits. They played drinking
games, board games.
00:26:19
They laughed. They joked. Everything seemed fine. And at half past 10:00,
Melanie and Clark
00:26:26
took a taxi back home. They have a great
night together. They drink heavily, as often
is the case on New Year's Eve,
00:26:33
and they do celebrate. So this is testament
to a toxic relationship where they have
good times together,
00:26:38
but whether it's to
do with the alcohol, whether it's to do with
the wounds that's going on
00:26:43
within their relationship
for some reason, they start arguing
about the relationship
00:26:48
that Melanie had with Katie. When they got
home that evening, there's immediate evidence of a
very, very loud, noisy argument
00:26:57
from within the premises
that a neighbor hears. And this argument continued
both with vitriolic verbal
00:27:04
abuse, but also in
the form of WhatsApp messages sent to each other
from within the confines
00:27:10
of the same house. There is taunting going each
way around the alleged tryst, and it seems that
this is the beginning
00:27:19
of the fateful incident. During this argument, Clark
claims that Melanie taunted him
00:27:25
again, that she
threw in his face the alleged affair she'd
had with Katie, that she
00:27:32
mocked him for
his sexual prowess and attempted to get him angry. And it is clear
that during the course
00:27:41
of the argument,
Mr. Clark decided, I'm going to teach you a lesson. And that started with him
sending a message to his friend
00:27:53
and telling his friend
about the sexual encounter which had occurred between the
friend's daughter and his wife.
00:28:01
For some reason, those
messages don't go through. Most likely because it's nearly
midnight on New Year's Eve.
00:28:06
And he sent that
message three times. There was no response
from the friend. The revenge was not working.
00:28:16
And so Mr Clark decided to
send a message to his sister. Again, there was no
response from his sister
00:28:27
that made him feel that
the revenge was working. And so he then decided
to send a message
00:28:35
reporting the sexual
encounter to one of his sons. And, again, there
was no response.
00:28:42
And finally, he decided to send
a message to his wife to say, I've told the family about
the sexual encounter.
00:28:52
NARRATOR: The purpose
of his message was to humiliate his
wife, but it backfired.
00:28:56
Eventually it seems these
messages do get through, but there's no response. Melanie decides now is the
time to really press home.
00:29:04
She sends messages
back to David, indicating that, everyone's
laughing at you, David.
00:29:09
They've been laughing at
you for the last 10 years. And it was in
those circumstances
00:29:13
that she told him to leave, that
he was to leave in the morning. So essentially, everything he
had done to try and get revenge
00:29:23
and to punish his
wife had not worked. Every bit of
control David thought he had over this
relationship was gone.
00:29:31
Melanie had taken it all
away from him in his eyes by those text messages
going through,
00:29:37
being told that everyone's
laughing at him. And the clear
theme of her messages was that she'd had
enough, and that if he
00:29:43
didn't leave in the morning,
she would call the police. And she also made it
clear in the messages
00:29:48
that she wanted to
end the conversation, probably because she
wanted to go to sleep.
00:29:53
NARRATOR: If Melanie wanted
to hurt him with these words, it had the desired effect,
but she could not have
00:29:59
predicted what happened next. Clark couldn't
handle this rejection. And just before midnight,
as the country was preparing
00:30:07
to bring in the new year, he
walked into the small bedroom that he'd been using
and picked up a knife.
00:30:14
What man leaves his
bedroom with a knife to go into another bedroom
to see his wife whom
00:30:19
he's arguing with? There can only have
been one intention. NARRATOR: For local
journalists, New Year's day
00:30:29
2018 was not the usual tale of
drunken revelers going too far. I'd woken up on
New Year's day 2018,
00:30:37
and I always check my phone. It just comes with the job. You always want to
know what's going on,
00:30:42
even when you're off duty. Obviously, not the best
time in the morning after-- after New Year's Eve.
00:30:47
And I was just shocked
to see on the West-- West Mercia Police
websites this report
00:30:53
that there'd been
a stabbing in Stake Prior, which is one of
the-- one of the safer
00:30:58
areas in Bromsgrove. NARRATOR: Local news
editor, Tristan Harris, doesn't get many
murders on his patch.
00:31:04
Right at that point, there
was not much known about it. It was mainly reported
as a police incident,
00:31:09
and that a man had been
arrested at the property, a 49 and 44-year-old victim. You start thinking, is it a
burglary that's gone wrong?
00:31:20
Is it a robbery? You don't really
know at that point. It could be a domestic incident.
00:31:25
NARRATOR: For local
police officers, there was little mystery about
who had killed Melanie Clark.
00:31:30
David then calls the police. In an expletive-laden
999 call, he just admits it, explains that he did it.
00:31:36
He said that she
did his head in. He said, I've killed my wife. I love her. I hate her.
00:31:42
I'm going to kill myself. The police arrived
just after midnight. They found Melanie dead.
00:31:48
They found Clark in
his pajamas, crouched by the side of the house. He asked police to kill him.
00:31:55
NARRATOR: Searching the
house, police confirmed that Melanie was beyond saving. Melanie herself
was soaked in blood.
00:32:02
Part of the lobe
of her right lung was penetrating from
the wound in her chest. The clearest evidence
that this was murder
00:32:10
was the evidence
from the pathology. The pathologist
describes a single blow with a knife that went
through her pendant,
00:32:19
through cartilage,
through her ribs, eight centimeters downwards. There were no
defensive injuries,
00:32:27
which meant that she didn't put
her arms up to defend herself. There was no struggle,
evidence of a struggle.
00:32:35
It was just a straightforward
attack with a knife. She didn't resist. Firstly, she wouldn't
have been aware
00:32:42
that he was going to do that. But secondly, even
though he's been abusive, this is out of character.
00:32:48
She doesn't have an
expectation that this is a man who could kill her,
so she's completely unprepared.
00:32:53
And that one stab wound goes
straight through her heart. So he kills her instantly.
00:32:58
Melanie's eldest son's arrived
home from their own New Year's Eve festivities to find
the house cordoned off,
00:33:05
emergency services
everywhere, flashing lights outside the home,
and their mother dead.
00:33:11
TRISTAN HARRIS: In the
Bromsgrove community, I think there was shock,
sadness, regret for the family,
00:33:16
wanting to help in any way
they could, make life better. Obviously, nobody could
bring Melanie back,
00:33:22
but they just wanted
to do what they could for-- for the children. NARRATOR: Clark was not about
to accept responsibility
00:33:29
for what had happened. David Clark never
accepted full responsibility for this crime.
00:33:34
He claimed that his
wife's taunts caused him to have a momentary
loss of control,
00:33:38
which made this happen. It was a difficult
case to prosecute. Cases involving the
death in a relationship
00:33:47
are always difficult,
particularly where the husband is-- or the wife is saying
that they have carried
00:33:57
out the act because
of a loss of control or a sudden burst of anger. NARRATOR: Charged with
murder in June 2018,
00:34:06
a jury at Birmingham
Crown Court heard Clark's version of events. Clark's defense
hinged on the belief
00:34:14
that he was the victim in
an abusive relationship. He claimed that for years
Melanie had belittled
00:34:21
and humiliated him,
and that that abuse had caused him to lose
his temper and lash out.
00:34:27
It was on that
basis that he felt he was guilty of manslaughter,
but not of murder.
00:34:33
BENJAMIN AINA: In the trial,
David Clark remorselessly attacked his wife's character.
00:34:38
He called her dishonest. He suggested that
she'd been unfaithful, that she was manipulative,
and that her parenting
00:34:44
skills were not very good. He tried to make out
that she was controlling, and that he was an abused
man who simply snapped.
00:34:52
Even after the murder
when he's talking to people about what happened, he's
not taking responsibility
00:34:58
for his own actions. He's saying things
like, well, you know, she was being horrible to me.
00:35:03
She was saying things to
me that were horrible. So he's actually
putting the blame on her
00:35:09
for her own murder. And then he says
things like, I just can't remember what happened.
00:35:15
I don't remember
picking up the knife. Anything, anything to take
away any blame from him
00:35:22
and put it onto somebody else. Now because of this, the
children of the marriage
00:35:26
were forced to come to
court to give evidence about his long periods
of systematic abuse
00:35:32
against their mother. NARRATOR: Also crucial
to the prosecution's case were telephone records.
00:35:38
There were over 300
messages, if I can remember rightly, in this trial. NARRATOR: Using data mined
from Melanie and David's
00:35:45
mobile phones,
prosecutor Ben Aina was able to trace for
the jury the course of this turbulent
marriage through control,
00:35:53
infidelity, temporary
separation, reconciliation, blazing rows. What those messages showed
was that the relationship
00:36:03
from about 2015 onwards
became turbulent. Mr. Clark had a bad temper. He liked to be in control.
00:36:16
He would very easily become
angry with his children. His anger would be
demonstrated by insulting
00:36:25
them, swearing at them. The messages showed that he
wanted to control his wife. And when he couldn't control
his wife, he had affairs.
00:36:35
So the suggestion that he
was being bullied by her or cowed by her
was just nonsense.
00:36:43
NARRATOR: This back
and forth communication continued right up
until the very moment
00:36:47
before Melanie Clark's murder. BENJAMIN AINA: The text
messages and WhatsApp exchanges
00:36:52
between them in the
last hour of her life showed that he was
trying to provoke her,
00:36:58
not the other way around. Most of his abusive
messages to her go unanswered, and at the end she--
it's almost like she gave up.
00:37:05
I just want to go to sleep. Just be gone in the morning. And I think it's
the fact that she--
00:37:11
she didn't rise to his bait. She didn't react. She didn't explode. She just laughed
at him, and I think
00:37:18
that that was the final--
the final straw for him that I've lost control again. Every bit of
control David thought
00:37:25
he had over this
relationship was gone. Melanie had taken it all
away from him, in his eyes,
00:37:32
by those text messages
going through, being told that everyone's
laughing at him.
00:37:37
He just lost it, so
he just went in there and he stabbed her
till she was dead. The prosecution's
case was one of murder.
00:37:47
His case was, no, this
is manslaughter by reason of loss of control. And those are always
difficult cases.
00:37:55
There was a single stab wound. There had been an argument. It had been a
turbulent relationship.
00:38:03
And so the prosecution had
to show, make a jury sure, that he intended
to kill his wife,
00:38:09
or he intended to cause
her really serious harm. I do believe that Clark went
into that room with that knife
00:38:16
to kill her in that moment. NARRATOR: This was the
prosecution's case. Would the jury be convinced?
00:38:22
It's actually really, really
difficult to convict somebody of murder with one stab.
00:38:28
Really difficult. NARRATOR: David Clark rejected
all of the evidence put to him.
00:38:32
In his eyes, he was the
victim in this marriage. He gave evidence
in a muted voice.
00:38:39
He-- there was no eye
contact between me and him. He would look down. And when the abusive text
messages were put to him,
00:38:50
his stock answer
was, that's just me, an example of me
sticking up for myself. He couldn't see that there
was anything wrong with it.
00:38:58
I think that at
some level, he has succeeded in putting some
of the blame for this murder
00:39:05
at Melanie's feet. Because, you know, she-- she has been
described as somebody who was provocative to him.
00:39:15
You know, that-- that kind
of language says to us she was pushing him
to doing something
00:39:23
that any reasonable
person would have done. It's really interesting
in cases like this
00:39:28
where a woman gets
murdered, and when you dig into the information,
you find that she didn't
00:39:34
take it lying down, you know? She fought back. She was nasty and cruel
at times, as so many of us
00:39:39
are in relationships. And suddenly, there
is this suggestion that somehow because of
her unwillingness to behave
00:39:47
as a lady, she deserved to die. NARRATOR: This was
the version of events that QC Ben Aina effort to
convince the jury to reject.
00:39:56
If he could not, there really
was a chance that Clark would get away with murder.
00:40:02
Everyone has been in
a relationship which is difficult, so
you know that you're going to have to persuade the
jury that a crime has been
00:40:10
committed rather
than someone losing their temper in the
course of a relationship.
00:40:15
Juries will give the
benefit of the doubt to a spouse who has killed
another spouse if they think
00:40:23
that that person
has been browbeaten and has been treated
in a very bad way. Nobody was suggesting that
Melanie Clark was a saint,
00:40:34
but I don't think
the jury liked him. They weren't prepared to give
him the benefit of the doubt,
00:40:39
because they didn't like him. They didn't like how he
behaved in the relationship.
00:40:43
And as I've said,
which man leaves a room with a knife and
an argument to go to his wife's separate bedroom?
00:40:50
On the 27th of June, the
jury rejected this defense. They found him guilty of murder.
00:40:58
The court completely
rejected his version of events. He was sentenced to
15 years imprisonment.
00:41:03
The judge ruled that when
Clark went into his bedroom and fetched the knife,
he had every intention
00:41:10
of murdering Melanie. NARRATOR: A marriage
of less than 11 years, a second chance at love
for a couple in their 40s,
00:41:16
had ended in bloodshed. Four children were
left without a mother. These are still young people,
still in their formative years.
00:41:26
And even Melanie's oldest son
has struggled with her death and with living
independently as a result.
00:41:33
I can't see a way out, he said
in his victim impact statement, and sometimes I
wish I wasn't alive.
00:41:41
TRISTAN HARRIS: It was
a sad, sorry situation. And this, which was a street
in picturesque Worcestershire,
00:41:47
will now forever be known
for a brutal murder. [music playing]