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Wife told she can appeal against hammer murder conviction Wife told she can appeal against hammer murder conviction
(about 1 hour later)
A woman who bludgeoned her husband to death has won a bid for permission to challenge her murder conviction.A woman who bludgeoned her husband to death has won a bid for permission to challenge her murder conviction.
Sally Challen, 63, from Claygate, Surrey, admitted killing Richard Challen, 61, in 2010 but denied murder. Sally Challen, 63, from Claygate, Surrey, admitted killing Richard, 61, but denied murder.
She was jailed for life in June 2011, and ordered to serve a minimum of 22 years, but later had the jail term reduced by four years on appeal.She was jailed for life in June 2011, and ordered to serve a minimum of 22 years, but later had the jail term reduced by four years on appeal.
She is seeking to have her conviction substituted with one for manslaughter, with a much lower sentence. Her lawyers argue she killed her "controlling" husband after enduring years of psychological abuse.
Challen wants the conviction substituted for one of manslaughter, which can carry a much lower sentence.
Three Court of Appeal judges ruled that she could appeal.
'Total desperation'
Challen's lawyer, and co-founder of Justice for Women, Harriet Wistrich, claims her client was a victim of coercive control - a kind of psychological abuse - because of her husband's behaviour.
The concept was only criminalised in 2015, four years after the trial.
Justice for Women, which has been campaigning to overturn the conviction, said Richard Challen "bullied and belittled" his wife and "controlled their money and who she was friends with, not allowing her to socialise without him".
Ms Wistrich said the new law would have recognised that Challen had "killed out of a sense of total desperation".
Challen's son, David, also believes she should only have been convicted of manslaughter.
During her trial, Challen had denied murder, claiming diminished responsibility.
Jurors were told she attacked the retired businessman with a hammer as he ate lunch at the kitchen table in their former marital home.
She had believed he was cheating on her .
After attacking him, she drove 70 miles to Beachy Head in East Sussex, where she admitted to chaplains trying to coax her away from the cliff edge that she had killed her husband of 31 years.