UK woman gets 9 years for killing father after finding child porn of herself, others

MANCHESTER, England — A 63-year old British woman was sentenced to nine years in prison Wednesday for killing her father and burying him in her Manchester garden after she found his collection of child pornography that included images of herself, the BBC reported.

Barbara Coombes confessed to police in January that she killed her 87-year-old father, Kenneth Coombes, in 2006, after being subjected to "a lifetime of abuse," The Guardian reported. Her father's body was found two days later, the newspaper reported.

Coombes told police "she snapped" in January 2006 when she found indecent images of herself and other children in her father's belongings, The Guardian reported. She told police that "a black cloud appeared over me," and she went to the backyard, where her father was tending to a garden.

Coombes, who said she had suffered 40 years of physical and verbal abuse from her father, hit him over the back of the head with a shovel. When the man turned around she hit him a second time, slashing his throat with the shovel's blade, the BBC reported.

She then wrapped her father in a carpet, ordered soil and buried him the next day, according to court documents.

Coombes pleaded not guilty to murdering her father but guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility, according to court documents.

Coombes told the court that when she was a child, her father took her to a photography club and forced her to display her genitals while being photographed, The Guardian reported. She said her father would constantly touch her, even as she entered her 50s, the newspaper said.

Judge Timothy King, in passing sentence, said he did not accept Coombes' claim that she acted in self-defense. He did, however, accept the idea that the woman committed the murder while suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression as a result of "40 years of extreme mental, physical and sexual abuse at the hands of your father," The Guardian reported.

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