Meet, Marry, Murder - Season 1, Episode 52 - Newton - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[music playing] NARRATOR: Sisters worried because they can't get hold of their mum.
One of them, Sophia Newton. The police arrived, and we followed them upstairs. And then they turned around to the top of the stairs
and said that she was there. And we had to go out because it was a crime scene. NARRATOR: What has happened?
The Newtons appear a picture perfect family. As far as anybody would be able to tell, a really
normal tight-knit family. NARRATOR: But as police and paramedics raced to the scene,
details emerge of a couple at war, Kelvin and Assia Newton. Most of his temper seemed to be directed towards Assia.
She was the focus for everything. NARRATOR: In South Wales, has murder come calling at a family home?
[theme music] [music playing] One hot, still July morning in summer 2013, Kelvin Newton dropped off his middle daughter, Sophia,
for work and headed towards the home that Sophia shared with her mother and two sisters.
On the afternoon of the 14th of July, Kelvin was seen entering the house where Assia was living.
And he knew that she was on her own in the house because he had just taken Sophia to work.
NARRATOR: The couple's youngest daughter was on holiday. The eldest had recently moved out.
The CCTV footage from the neighbor's house shows him going in and then leaving with just an 18-minute gap.
NARRATOR: Later that night, the first signs for Sophia Newton something was wrong.
My dad dropped me to work. And my mum was supposed to be picking me up at 10 o'clock.
And she wasn't there, which wasn't like her. So I tried ringing her. There was no answer.
So I rung my older sister. She answered the phone and said that she couldn't get hold of her either.
Nobody could get any contact from Assia. And everybody became very concerned about it.
NARRATOR: Sophia and her sister went together to the family home, where they were unable to get in.
In the end, we said, we're going to have to ring the police because we couldn't get through.
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, on a lonely side street in Bridgend, a pedestrian noticed a car parked
up, lights on, a man inside-- Kelvin Newton. TONY KENT: Kelvin was in an industrial state,
having made an attempt upon his own life. The attempt seems to have been a serious one.
He had taken 40 tablets, and he had slit his own wrists. NARRATOR: Shocked, the passerby asked what could they do.
They've just come across a man who needs help. And that he's harmed himself, he's taken an overdose.
And they're going to ring the police, or they're going to ring an ambulance because he's
vulnerable and he needs help. NARRATOR: As Kelvin was stabilized in hospital and prepped for surgery on the severed nerves and tendons
in his wrist, police had arrived at the Newton family home, where Sophia and her older sister
waited, their trepidation growing. We thought that she might have just fallen asleep,
and she hadn't sort of realized the time or whatever. But then as time went on, and we were sort of banging the door,
and there was still no sign, there was-- we thought there may be some-- she could've, like,
harmed herself in some way. NARRATOR: They would discover the truth was much worse.
The police arrived, and they managed to get in through the door. So they went upstairs.
We followed them upstairs. And then they turned around at the top of the stairs and said that she was there.
And we had to go out because it was a crime scene. NARRATOR: What had happened behind these closed doors?
In what neighbors thought was a perfect family home, what was the truth of the marriage
of Mr. And Mrs. Newton? When Kelvin Newton first met Assia Lynn Sullivan, he had little experience of a loving family life.
He has not one of the best upbringings. He came from a home where he had parents
who would frequently drink. There was a history of violence within his own family home.
NARRATOR: Kelvin's daughter Sophia witnessed the impact of his troubled childhood.
Dad had suffered from mental health since a very young age and used to take, like, loads of different medication
for depression, antipsychotics, and stuff. NARRATOR: As a young man, he fell foul of the law,
serving time in jail. JANE MONCKTON SMITH: At quite a young age, he started to use violence to solve his problems, you know,
as the people were around him. And I just think it was a language he was comfortable with and something that
just carried on in his life. NARRATOR: Assia and Kelvin had known each other briefly at
school before parting ways and meeting again a couple of years later. Assia and Kelvin met at the local rugby club.
Assia was a single mum. Her life was set up quite well. She was quite happy. She was financially supported by her parents.
She had somewhere to live. NARRATOR: It was 1988. Assia and Kelvin were both just 19 years old.
Kevin wasn't fazed by the idea of dating a single mother. In fact, he jumped at the chance to be a family with Assia
and her son, Daniel. They moved in together, and they got married. NARRATOR: A big white wedding at the local golf club.
Within a couple of years, they were having their own child. Things did move quite quickly for them.
NARRATOR: In the first few years of the '90s, the young couple worked hard to create the perfect life
for their growing family. Kelvin had his own business. My dad used to do building work.
And he was really successful. He'd done quite a few, like, celebrities, sort of around the areas, working on their houses.
NARRATOR: Before long, he was working on a home for his own family. And initially, things went well.
They found a house up for auction that needed some work. And it seemed like the perfect home for them
because Kelvin could then use his building skills, build a proper family home for them.
They pretty much knocked most of it down. So, like, just, it was the shell. And then he built everything, like, to make it into a house
then. NARRATOR: The couple's firstborn was a daughter. Two more baby girls followed in quick succession.
Kelvin and Assia were able to give their children all the things they themselves had never had.
The family owned quite a lot of land in Pencoed and some horses. SOPHIA NEWTON: We used to go on holiday at least,
like, abroad at least once a year. We used to go on, like, day trips, like, all of us as a family.
Anybody from the outside looking in would have thought that he had learned so much from what he
didn't have as a child and had turned it into something that was just a privileged life for his children
and for his wife. We were always aware of the, like, happy times that we used to have and how lucky
we were for having them to feel like family times and the places we used to go and stuff.
NARRATOR: An idyllic home life and a couple who were prominent members of the local community,
as Bridgend native Beth Edwards, now a national news journalist, remembers. BETH EDWARDS: Just your sort of normal, salt of the Earth,
local family, really. You definitely see Kelvin more in the community than you would
Assia, whether it was through his job as a builder, or whether it was tending to the horses on his dad's farm,
or whether it was in his role as kitman with the local rugby club. NARRATOR: Rugby was Kelvin's passion, one he shared
with two of his four children. Daniel and Sophia seemed to enjoy rugby and sport like their dad.
When my brother was younger, he played for Pencoed Rugby Club. So my dad took up coaching and done
his coaching through college. Me and my sister, there was only 10 minutes between us.
So when I was little, my mum used to always be with Sameera. And then because I was a little bit older,
I'd always be with my dad. So he used to take me to rugby. We used to go, and I got the garden pass and the rugby ball.
Kelvin even signed up to be the kitman at the local rugby club, which takes up I think
about three evenings a week-- a huge, huge commitment. This role would include things like making
sure every member of the team had their kit ready for match day. And then he would also be responsible for equipment,
so things like the rugby balls and cones for training and things like that. SOPHIA NEWTON: Both of us used to love going down there.
With rugby, it's the best community you can get because you feel like a family, and everyone's there to sort of support
you and look out for you. NARRATOR: The club was at the center of social life for half
of the family, at least. I can't remember an occasion where we would have seen Assia
and the other two daughters, Charmaine and Sameera, at the rugby. NARRATOR: In fact, unlike her husband, Kelvin, Assia's face
was not well-known in the area. Kelvin didn't like her venturing too far from the family home.
Assia had a number of part-time jobs in local shops and so forth. But they were never full-time jobs.
She would be in one job. And then that would end abruptly. NARRATOR: No steady job, rarely seen out socially--
was this by accident or design? An early sign perhaps of a controlling husband. Kelvin would do things that prohibited her
from being able to get to her job, wouldn't give her lifts back and forth, wouldn't pick her up,
would make her late. And so she never seemed to find a job that she could stay in for very long.
NARRATOR: Assia's life appeared to be constrained by Kelvin's idea of how she should live.
You sometimes see in relationships like this where the men are abusive and controlling,
they don't want their partners to have any financial freedom. They don't want them to have a job.
They don't want them to have decision-making responsibilities or anything like that.
They want to keep their lives as small as possible, keep control of them, and not allow them to have, you know,
like, a broad interest in life. NARRATOR: For a while, Assia abided by the rules Kelvin
set for her life. But then, something happened that shattered whatever fragile stability Mr. and Mrs. Newton had arrived at.
Daniel fell from a moving vehicle and received very, very serious injuries. As soon as my dad used to drink, he used to turn nasty.
Everything happened, and then he turned to the bottom of a bottle. [music playing]
NARRATOR: Without a steady job, Assia was essentially a stay-at-home mom to her four children.
It was a role she appeared good at. Mum used to be amazing. She always used to make-- like, Christmas, it would be, like,
a massive family get-together. She couldn't do enough for any of us. If we were struggling with anything,
she'd always be there. Emotionally, she'd, like, always make-- take us to our appointments, take us to doctors'
appointments and stuff. We were always-- we were lucky like that. NARRATOR: Assia's role as a homemaker was also something
that suited her husband. She was looking after the children so that also fulfilled a need in Kelvin
probably to be the provider, to be the father. This is his identity. JESSICA TAYLOR: To the outsider, Kelvin appears to be, you know,
this-- he's a provider. He's a good person. He has good relationships. He's got a good business.
It's going well. It's successful. He works at the rugby club. He's taken on Assia's child from a previous relationship.
So therefore, you know, it looks-- he's portrayed as a positive member of the community.
NARRATOR: Dr. Jessica Taylor, a forensic psychologist, believes it wasn't just about Kelvin
restricting Assia's access to money by getting in the way of any part-time jobs.
It was also about restricting her access to the support of colleagues who knew her well.
If they don't spend any time around her, you don't get a feel for if she's OK. She's not able to disclose to anyone.
She's not able to build any trusting relationships, where somebody is able to then say, are you OK?
Is everything OK in your relationship? Because you don't seem OK. I don't see you around anymore, and things like that.
It would appear that the controlling nature of the marriage was there from day one.
NARRATOR: But did anyone at the time notice trouble in the Newton marriage? Some incidents were hard to explain.
Assia had turned up one day in the local community with a shaved head. She had told people that she had done it for charity when,
in actual fact, Kelvin had shaved her head as a punishment for something that she had done wrong in his eyes.
That isn't violence that is going to be over in five minutes. That violence, she's going to have to carry around with her
until her hair grows back. She's going to be humiliated, ashamed. It's so very cruel and is an extremely
effective control mechanism. He wants to keep her inside the house under his control.
NARRATOR: Kelvin's ability to control his wife began to crumble around the 4th of May, a Sunday, in 2008.
On a stormy overcast night, tragedy struck the Newtons. May 2008 was a real turning point for this family.
My brother went up to Bristol on a night out. NARRATOR: Daniel Sullivan, 21 years old,
who had recently become a father for the second time. Later on that night, we were all in the house,
and there was a knock on the door from a neighbor. He said that he wanted to speak to my mum and dad.
Called them in the porch and said that Daniel had been involved in an accident in Bristol.
NARRATOR: Daniel had traveled from Pencoed to Bristol in a minibus with his friends.
They'd come to the traffic lights, ready to go. And someone shouted, oh, boys [inaudible]
so my brother went to get out of the back and fell out of the fire exit door at the back.
And the car hit him in mid-flight. Daniel fell from a moving vehicle and received very, very serious injuries.
He was taken to the hospital. And he was actually on life support. NARRATOR: Assia, Kelvin, and their daughters
drove to Bristol, an hour away. They pulled us into a room with a liaison officer
and told us that he'd been in a road traffic accident. He-- they were clearing him-- his,
like, body, blood, and stuff up. And then my mom and dad had to go and identify him to make sure it was him.
And then they were putting him into intensive care. We were just all taking our [inaudible]
to go in to see him. My nan and auntie and that come up then the next day. And everything was just sort of-- we
weren't really sure what-- if it was going to take a turn for the worse or if he was going to get better.
But within two days, they had to make the decision to turn off Daniel's life support.
NARRATOR: The family gathered to say goodbye to Daniel. They called us all in and said they were
taking the life support off. We were only allowed about 10, 15 minutes with him before they had to take him down to surgery
because he was donating his organs. NARRATOR: For a few weeks, shock and the practicalities
of dealing with Daniel's death kept Assia and Kelvin busy. They were just numb, everything.
You just didn't feel, didn't feel right. Assia took the decision to donate his organs.
And as a grieving mum, it seemed to me that she took a lot of pride and comfort from the fact
that her son was able to live on in helping other people. And Assia did some press interviews.
There was a sense that she was struggling and wasn't afraid to admit that she was struggling
with the loss of her son. Whereas Kelvin had gone to ground somewhat in terms of keeping it to himself
and being stoic in his grief and internalizing a lot of it. NARRATOR: The community rallied around.
The news of Daniel's death hit Bridgend really hard. And the nature of his death was a real tragedy.
And it's a type of thing that people were talking about for weeks and months after it had happened.
So it really impacted the community. And the thing is, with Bridgend, the rugby club
is the heart of the community. And Daniel had been involved in both Bridgend Rugby Club,
and he'd also played for his local team in Pencoed. So you had a rugby community that
came together to grieve and support Kelvin and Assia and the three girls. NARRATOR: Once the shock of Daniel's death had receded,
Assia and Kelvin will have to cope with their grief. It was very soon clear that both were struggling.
Daniel's death had a profound impact on the entire family. It was as if from that day on that my mum had sort of passed
away slightly as well, like she was never the same person as she was beforehand.
Everything just sort of crumbled from there on, really, as a family. Assia went into a deep depression.
She withdrew from the world. I think that Assia prided itself on being a good mum,
as best a mum that she could be. And she lived for her children. And I think the death of her only son
gave her one last piece of hope in life. She'd spend hours down the grave, like, making sure it was clean, cutting the grass down there.
She used to spend, like, hours on end, even at, like, 9 o'clock in the night and stuff.
She'd stay down there. NARRATOR: Grief for Kelvin Newton took a different complexion.
Kelvin, throughout this time, had still been suffering from mental health issues.
He had them under control. He had previously been a heavy drinker. He had that under control.
He hadn't touched a drop for 10 years. That all changed. The mental health issues became far more severe.
He became a heavy drinker again. BETH EDWARDS: He would regularly drink 10 pints of very strong beer.
And he was unable to control his mental health issues when he was under the influence of alcohol.
You could tell with my dad when he was sort of going to-- when he was getting nastier and nastier.
And the more bottles were going down, the more you could see it in him that he was going to change and snap.
NARRATOR: When Kelvin snapped, the whole family knew about it. He would smash objects and smash windows and punch doors
and kick doors. His moving between depression and almost mania or severe anger started to dominate the girls' lives.
They became very frightened of him. And his temper tantrums became very violent.
And they remember him throwing things. Could be a cup one time, but could be a microwave
or a television another time. NARRATOR: But the main target of Kelvin's temper was not his daughters.
It was his wife. Most of his temper seemed to be directed towards Assia. She was the focus for everything.
BETH EDWARDS: Some of it was subtle. It would be controlling elements, like putting a voice
app on Assia's phone, so if she got a text message or a voice call, it would read out the person's name
who was sending it or calling. Kelvin would always know who was calling and who Assia was in conversation with.
NARRATOR: After Daniel's death, Kelvin began to feel that Assia was slipping out of his control.
Things had changed between Assia and Kelvin. They had almost what you might call an agreement of how they
behaved towards each other. I mean, this wasn't a written agreement. This was a marriage agreement.
So Assia behaved in a certain way. Kelvin behaved in a certain way. And as long as nobody upset that balance,
everything carried along nicely. When Assia became depressed, she did not respond to Kelvin in the way that she had previously done.
He then starts to lose control over her. And the violence escalates. The control escalates at that point.
NARRATOR: And when Assia failed to toe the line, the consequences could be dire.
Burns, cuts, scrapes, little micro violence that could be hidden quite easily, but which seemed to be quite degrading and humiliating.
NARRATOR: And yet outside the home, Kelvin was still the upstanding citizen, the reliable builder,
the capable kitman. To the untrained eye, he wasn't an imposing man. He-- he wasn't, you know, the life and soul of the party.
He wasn't the boast. He was quite quiet and unassuming. But unfortunately, I think that was a lot of why it went
unseen for so long, was because he didn't cut your typical figure of a violent abusive man.
That's not necessarily uncommon, where you have this almost Jekyll and Hyde type character,
where you've got this positive portrayal outside the home and something very, very different inside the home.
NARRATOR: But as Kelvin's drinking increased, so did his violence, until it reached the point where
Assia Newton had had enough. Assia had been in contact with Muhammad, the waiter.
He started to flirt with her. And she was very flattered. [music playing] NARRATOR: One day in 2011, Kelvin Newton committed
an act of aggression against his wife Assia that could not be hidden or ignored.
Things really came to a head when Kelvin set fire to the couch in the house. He was arguing with my mum over drink.
And my mum went to take the can out of his hand. And then, the can spilt on the pillow.
And then he left it then, and they went up. Me and my younger sister ran out of the house.
My mum had run out. And then he had stayed in the house and put out the fire and locked herself in.
The police were called. He was arrested. And I think Assia used that window of opportunity.
He wasn't there. The police were in control. She had some support to get a restraining order against him.
That was a big, big step for her to take and probably a very frightening step as well.
But with the courts and the police involved, he did move out of the family home.
NARRATOR: It wasn't long before Assia allowed Kelvin back home, though, where the angry outbursts remained a regular feature
of family life. On one occasion, he poured petrol down the stairs. On another, he was arrested again, this time
for threatening with an axe. There would be periods where it was worse and then times where Kelvin seemed to be more in control,
but that there could be small triggers that would lead him on a spiral of weeks and months of abuse.
He set fire to the sofa. He welded an ax. And that's extremely serious, very very, dangerous.
And it's exactly what we would see as a red flag for someone who's going to go on to kill their partner.
NARRATOR: Perhaps, Assia realized the threat that her husband posed to her life.
Finally, after 23 years of marriage to Kelvin, she decided she'd had enough. She delivered an ultimatum.
It was either us, like, as a family or the drink. He didn't reply so she said, I'll give
you time to think about it. Strangely, not what we'd expect to see, he took the decision to not sober up.
He left the family home. He went to live with his sister. NARRATOR: It seemed a turning point in the story
of Mr. and Mrs. Newton. Mum was sort of happy, and my dad was happier. They were still speaking and still in contact.
NARRATOR: The peaceful period was not to last. Kelvin had no intention of giving up his wife that easily.
When Kelvin moved out, he only partially moved out, really, because he still considered this was his home,
and this was his family. He was always up every day. Used to come to the house to let the dogs out
and see to the dogs and stuff. And then, if we needed lifts or anything, he'd do all that.
Kelvin would still come to the family home every single day by 8:00 AM. He had a key so he would let himself in.
He would make himself food and drinks. He would make Assia a cup of tea every morning
and take it into her bedroom so he still had access to her private spaces. Dad was paying for the mortgage and for food.
Mum couldn't afford it because she was still on benefits at the time. NARRATOR: It's not clear that Assia
welcomed the daily visits. He's got control from a distance in that way, but that relationship is estranged.
But he's still able to just waltz in whenever he wants. And who's going to do anything about it?
Because he's going to argue, I'm paying the mortgage. It's my house. So he still has control over significant factors in Assia
and the children's lives, which is a roof over their head, food, finances, things like that.
He was inserting himself into their lives in a way that he could without the police being called or being censured.
While Assia had wanted a separation, she wasn't really free of him at all for any period of time.
NARRATOR: If Assia or the girls wanted anything, they had to go to Kelvin for it.
He, in turn, seemed to take pleasure from displaying his generosity. Kelvin liked to look after his family as he saw it.
And he liked to have these big, extravagant gestures to show what, you know, a wonderful and loving father he
was. On my birthday, dad paid for me and my mum to go away. We went out to Tunisia, me, my mum, and my nan.
Unfortunately, that was a decision that he would live to regret because on that holiday,
Assia met another man. When we were out there, there was a waiter that was in the food court.
And then he got chatting to us. The waiter was a terrible flirt. It turned out that Assia had gone for coffee with him.
He started to flirt with her. And she was very flattered. This was fun for her. There was no control of her.
Kelvin was back in Wales, so she probably relaxed a bit. NARRATOR: Back in Wales, a few days later,
Assia immediately told her daughters she needed another holiday. Assia had maintained contact with Mohammed
through the internet and emails, chatting online, and had decided to go back out there.
She was going to [inaudible] to go back out on her own to sort her head out and then come
back and have a fresh start. And when she was there, the waiter man was there. They were in contact then, while she was over there.
I think she was just blinded by the fact that she was getting all this attention that she had not
for years and was hoping that something was going to happen, like this sort of miracle sort of thing and this relationship
that she's always wanted. Assia was extremely happy to have a friend and somebody that
had shown her affection, light-hearted friendship, and hope and optimism, that she was an attractive woman,
that she was desirable, and that somebody could be attracted to her. NARRATOR: Central to Kelvin's success
and early family life had been his ability to provide. His money showed his success.
Now he was about to see his hard earned money given to another man. He could only speak to her in internet cafes over there.
So he asked her for a laptop so they could speak when he was at home and stuff. He was manipulating her and flattering her.
The household did start to suffer. And it wasn't long before Kelvin found out. NARRATOR: Kelvin was furious.
It's an interesting reaction that he has because he reacts almost in a way of he's betrayed,
but obviously, because he's abusing her, he has control over her. What he's not seeing is that he's
using the money in the first place to control her. They've been estranged for 18 months.
The only reason there's still money going into that house is because it's part of the power and the control over her.
NARRATOR: To Kelvin Newton, this was the ultimate betrayal, one that he was determined to avenge.
Once he saw her with another man, that was it for him. And that is when everything became absolutely catastrophic.
[music playing] NARRATOR: July 14, 2013, police find Assia Newton lying lifeless on her bedroom floor.
They had said that it looked like she passed away. And they have to ring for an ambulance to come.
Initially, the police thought that this was a suicide. There were no real injuries to Assia
apart from the injury that had killed her. NARRATOR: A red tartan dog lead was wrapped around the mother
of four's neck and mouth. As officers assessed the scene, they began to notice clues that suggested Assia may
not have done this to herself. We had to have interviews because I was the last person
to have seen my mum and my dad. I said, where's my mum's car that my dad had borrowed to take me to work?
And that still wasn't at the house. When they searched for Assia's car, they found Kelvin.
It was then that Kelvin made the admission that something had happened at the property.
TONY KENT: One of the things that he said when he was found was that he did not mean to kill Assia.
Kelvin went in, and we can only imagine what kind of an argument blew up between them.
The subject matter is almost inevitably going to be his wife's decision to move on, his wife's decision
that their marriage was over. NARRATOR: Kelvin would later tell a court that his former wife had been goading him.
Kelvin claims to the police afterwards that he had got into an argument with Assia.
And he used a really, really common defense that you see a lot of these kind of humiliated men
use. And that was they were having an argument about Ahmed and she was comparing Kelvin to Ahmed unfavorably.
What Kelvin told the jury is that in the course of his visit to the home, Assi had decided to taunt him.
She told him about his mental health issues. She told him about his lack of sexual prowess in comparison
to Mohammed, the Tunisian waiter. In response, according to Kelvin, he simply snapped.
He told the jury that he took that dog lead, and he was trying to wrap it around Assia's mouth.
He was telling them, I was trying to gag her. He claimed that everything he did was an attempt to gag her.
NARRATOR: He would claim that he shut his eyes and pulled on the two ends of the lead
until Assia slumped to the floor. Calvin maintained that he had never meant to end Assia's life on that day,
that he had not been able to control himself. And before he knew it, she was lifeless and that he
had strangled her to death. NARRATOR: Was this really what had happened? Knowing how long Kelvin Newton spent in the house that day,
criminologist Jane Monckton Smith is skeptical about his version of events. Within that 18 minutes, Kelvin had strangled
Assia with a dog lead. He had showered himself, changed his clothes, tidied up, cleaned gathered some of the forensic evidence,
and then calmly left the house. The short time frame, all of the things that he did to try and cover up what he had done strongly
suggest that he had actually planned what he was going to do. NARRATOR: Could this really have been
an argument that escalated? The murder must have happened very, very quickly after him arriving, or he wouldn't
have had time to do the other things he needed to do. If they had got into a fight, say, that got out of hand,
and he had attacked her, maybe meant to kill her, but not planned in advance to kill her,
he probably would have been in a bit more shock. He probably would have been concerned about what he had
done and not have it fixed in his mind the things he needed to do to forensically
clean himself and separate himself from what had happened. There's little doubt in my mind that Kelvin
planned to kill Assia. NARRATOR: What of Kelvin's attempted suicide? He did take 40 tablets.
He did need to have his stomach pumped. He did cut his own wrists. He did seem to be making a fairly concerted effort.
None of this was enough to actually kill him. I think the reality for Kelvin of actually killing himself was
maybe too difficult, maybe a bit more effort than he thought it would take. And maybe he just didn't really have the kind of belief
that he wanted to do it after he'd solved the problem of Assia. Once that problem was solved, a lot of the anger and tension
would have gone. NARRATOR: Once patched up, Kelvin was forced to face up to what he'd done.
Kelvin's attempt on his own life was unsuccessful. And as you would expect, he was arrested
and he was charged with Assia's murder. NARRATOR: At Cardiff Crown Court seven months later,
Kelvin Newton took the stand to plead not guilty to murder. He admitted killing Assia, but argued that he'd lost control.
Provocation had caused him to act the way he had. This was manslaughter. His defense said that he had undiagnosed health conditions
and that it was more than likely that he suffered from bipolar and other personality disorders.
NARRATOR: What's more, Kelvin's defense team suggested he couldn't help being the kind of husband and father
that he was. Kelvin said that he came from a home where he had parents who would frequently drink
and that there was a history of violence within his own family home with his own parents.
He was painted very much by his defense as a victim of abuse himself and that this cycle had
unfortunately continued, but that it was out of his control because he had been conditioned to believe that this is just
the way that a family is run. This is a way that a husband treats a wife. NARRATOR: He told the jury that he'd always hoped to get back
together with Assia and had been heartbroken to discover she'd met someone new. Assia had shared with him that she was going to Tunisia
and that she was hopeful for a friendship. She had begged Kelvin to let her move on.
And she had a diary which had this written down, words to that effect. Please let me go.
NARRATOR: Would the jury believe that taken together, the mental health and the heartbreak,
and Assia's alleged goading, Kelvin had simply been pushed over the edge? Perhaps they would.
But investigating officers had discovered a notebook kept by the victim over many years, which
detailed countless times that Kelvin had attacked his wife. It emerged that in the course of their marriage,
he tried to drown Assia. He tried to strangle her on another occasion. He had beaten her.
You've got so many very serious acts of violence that she could have died on any of these.
So that it's not out of the blue, this behavior, that he then strangles her and kills her with a dog lead.
He has shown over and over again that he is capable of it. NARRATOR: On the 27th of February,
after a two-week trial, the jury was ready to return their verdict. Kelvin Newton was found guilty of murdering his wife.
Two weeks later, Sophia Newton sat alone in court to hear her father's punishment.
Sophia had and still has mixed emotions about the fate of the father, a father she still loves.
They said 18 years, but to me, justice will never be done until my dad passes away because he's
taken my mum's life. When sentencing, Judge Eleri Rees sentenced Kelvin to 18 years in prison.
So he will be eligible for parole in 2031. She said that this was a callous murder borne out
of sexual jealousy, for which his defense was not to be believed that he had been provoked.
But he had inflicted years of abuse upon Assia. And sadly and inevitably, this had led to her death.
NARRATOR: As Kelvin Newton serves out his time, his family were left on the outside,
dealing with the fallout of his crimes. Everybody's a loser here, that there's no winners here.
A family that seems to have a history of tragedy and a mum that now can't be there
for her remaining daughters and grandchildren, a man sitting in prison having to live with what he's done.
I ended up contacting my dad then and saying, you are the only person I've got. But if I change my mind from now or later-- years
down the future that I don't want contact with you, you're going to have to accept that.
It's just tragic. It's just tragic. And yeah, there really are no winners in this case.
[music playing]

Assia Newton had left her abusive marriage and dreamt of a new life with her Tunisian lover. But her estranged husband had other plans.

Though wedded couples vow to stay together until death do they part, this new true crime series looks at what happens when a groom or bride causes their beloved's death.

Brief Summary

The episode details the murder of Assia Newton by her husband Kelvin, exploring their troubled marriage and its tragic consequences.

Key points

A Perfect Family?. The Newtons appear to be a picture-perfect family, but dark details emerge.
The Shocking Incident. Assia's shaved head reveals the controlling nature of her husband, Kelvin.
A Father's Descent. Kelvin Newton's mental health spirals after a family tragedy, leading to violence.
The Turning Point. After 23 years of marriage, Assia delivers an ultimatum to Kelvin: family or drink.
A Fatal Argument. A seemingly trivial argument escalates into a deadly confrontation between Assia and Kelvin.
The Verdict. Kelvin Newton is found guilty of murdering his wife Assia after a two-week trial.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

The truth was much worse.

NARRATOR revealing the grim reality of the situation.

3:45WatchJun 8, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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