Husband gets life for strangling his wife

A Midland man who strangled his "devoted" wife in a fit of rage has been jailed for life.

Florin Codreanu may have wrongly thought that his wife Maria was having an affair when he murdered her, the court heard.

He will serve a minimum of 15 years. Romanian-born Codreanu tried desperately to revive his wife, a part-time drama teacher, as she lay dying in the bedroom of their home in St Michael's Road, Lichfield, but she was too badly injured.

After a week-long trial, the jury at Stafford Crown Court took three hours to find 30-year-old Codreanu guilty of murder.

Sentencing him to life imprisonment, Mrs Justice Julia Macur told him: "This truly is a tragic case. You have been convicted of the murder of a wife I have no doubt you loved dearly.

"There is nothing to suggest you weren't deliriously happy in each other's company until that weekend when something went very much awry. You were raised to anger and fury by the benign comments of your wife." The judge said she could not be sure whether Codreanu intended to kill his wife or cause her serious harm.

"The consequences were the same," she said. "She died at your hands, she was on the threshold of her life, she anticipated being married to you for a long time and bearing your children."

British-born Mrs Codreanu, 27, nee Cannon, whose family home is in Skegness, married in July 2007. The couple had no children but Codreanu said they had talked about starting a family.

She was a part-time drama teacher at Sutton Coldfield College at the time of her death in January. Before Christmas, Codreanu became "terrified" of losing his engineering job at Faurecia Interior Systems, Fradley.

There were rumours that half the workforce was going to be laid off, he told the jury.

The prosecution put forward the suggestion that Codreanu's murderous rage was sparked by his false suspicion that his wife was having an affair and was going to leave him.

Mr Kevin Hegarty QC, for the prosecution, said that in reality she was "devoted" to him and "loved him to bits".

On the day before she died, they went shopping together in Lichfield and in the evening went to bed to watch TV and make love.

During the night, Codreanu had nightmares, and his wife's suggestion that he see a psychiatrist triggered a "big, big fight".

Mrs Justice Macur said the killing appeared to be "on the spur of the moment".