A ‘greedy’ mortgage broker who killed his wife at their £1.2 million home to pay off a ‘surging mountain of debt’ was convicted of her murder today.
Robert Hammond topped up the couple’s life insurance payments despite defaulting on other financial commitments before strangling Sian shortly after they had sex.
He then dialled 999 to call an ambulance to their home in the upmarket village of Histon, near Cambridge, and ‘put on an act’, claiming he had found her not breathing after she went to bed alone.
But a police investigation found his debts spiralled to £300,000 and he had been ‘telling lies’ to keep creditors off his back, including inventing a bogus cancer diagnosis.
‘While the Hammonds were no doubt very wealthy, with numerous properties, and were held in high regard by many, the defendant found himself in a hole, not just about the debt and money but the status that brought them,’ prosecutor Christopher Paxton KC said while opening the case last month.
Sian Hammond (pictured) was strangled by her husband shortly after they had sex
‘From the outside, Sian and the defendant were a happy couple with two children, living in an affluent part of the city, and had a lot going for them.
‘But the police investigation has revealed the defendant faced a surging mountain of debt and financial pressures that you may think led him to act as he did.’
Hammond was convicted unanimously of murder and will be sentenced on Tuesday.
His wife’s family paid tribute to her, saying: ‘Sian was one of the friendliest people you could have the pleasure of meeting and she will be sorely missed by many.’
Hammond, 47, called the emergency services just before 2am on October 30 last year and claimed he had found his wife of more than 20 years face down on the bed and not breathing.
Part of the call was played to jurors in which he could he heard being told to perform CPR and at one point claimed she had fallen off the bed.
But this was the first step in covering up the injuries she received when she was strangled, the prosecutor said, describing it as ‘part of his façade, his act playing the grieving and anxious husband’.
A paramedic also questioned whether CPR had taken place as he arrived ten minutes after the 999 call was received and Mrs Hammond’s body was described as being already cold.
Robert Hammond (pictured) topped up the couple’s life insurance payments despite defaulting on other financial commitments before strangling Sian shortly after they had sex
Police were called to the detached house and noticed suspicious ‘bruises and marks’ but it was only a week later that a post-mortem examination found Mrs Hammond had numerous abrasions and bruises around her head.
There was also pinprick haemorrhaging to her face and neck indicating there had been ‘pressure to the neck’. Injuries to her hands suggested they were caused defending herself.
CCTV at the house showed no one else had entered or left the house on the night she died.
Detectives found Hammond owed £200,000 to Legal and General and another large sum to HM Revenue and Customs.
During a conversation with a staff member at Legal and General who was chasing payment, he gave her a sob story about how his wife had died and they had been in the process of divorcing.
But he changed his story when interviewed by police and said they were ‘happily married’.
Mr Paxton said the divorce was possibly a ‘secret they had kept and added to the tension between husband and wife’.
In a further conversation with the Legal and General employee on November 3, Hammond asked whether the firm would review the interest on his debt balance when he received a £450,000 life insurance payout.
‘Sian had been dead barely a week and this was on the defendant’s mind. He had his eyes on the prize of the pay-off,’ Mr Paxton said.
‘We say the defendant saw Sian’s death as his way out of the debt crisis he was in.’
The court heard the couple, who have two teenage daughters and had been earning a combined £90,000 a month, had recently separated their businesses.
Sian, 46, was principal and director of Lime Tree Financial Services based in Cambridge, while her husband, who denies murder, runs Hammonds Mortgage Services in Huntingdon.
Speaking after the conviction, Detective Inspector Richard Stott, from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit, said: ‘Once the investigation progressed, it showed Hammond to be a competent liar and the large debts and financial pressures he was under became clear.
‘His greed and fear of losing his public standing led to him murdering his wife to benefit from her life insurance and to continue hiding his debt and lies.’
Hammond boasted about his sexual exploits with his wife after coldly texting friends to inform them she had died.
In his message, he said: ‘I wanted you to hear from me that Sian passed away last night in her sleep.
‘Been a tough day. Can you let the other halves know please? I don’t need anything, just want you to know.’
Deborah Bevis, who met Mrs Hammond 15 years ago when their children were at the same school, said she and her husband were shocked at the message and ‘didn’t believe it’.
They went round to see Hammond three days later and he told them he had gone to Aldi to buy steak for dinner before doing a workout in their home gym.
Sian was also very sporty and had treated their sex like a ‘workout’, he added.
Prosecutor Mr Paxton said to Mrs Bevis: ‘He said he and Sian had a cwtch – it’s a Welsh word for cuddle – and James [the name Hammond was known by] told you he had sex with Sian and he described Sian as like a gym bunny and that Sian had used it as a workout.’
‘Yes, I think he said that,’ she replied, adding it was not normal for him to discuss their sex lives.
Mrs Bevis described the defendant as a ‘funny, sociable, nice man’ and that he had appeared calm and made no mention of financial difficulties.
Hammond’s daughters Lauren and Katie were in court earlier this week during the judge’s summing up and were in tears at one point as they mouthed words to him through the glass of the dock.
The couple had been together since they were 17 and the defendant insisted during the trial they were happy together and had never cheated on each other.
‘Even though we were married for a long time, she made me feel special,’ he said.
Asked whether he had actually performed CPR on her after calling 999, he told the jury: ‘I 100 per cent did. I wanted to give her the best chance she could have.’
The wife killer cried crocodile tears as medics told him they couldn’t do anything for her and asked him if he wanted to be with her as they pronounced her dead.
He continued working on the day of her death and afterwards, messaging one colleague at 8am about arrangements for a client’s mortgage.
Hammond also contacted a tenant at one of his properties about a problem with a broken radiator and messaged his personal trainer to say he couldn’t make an appointment.
Asked by the prosecutor if it was ‘business as usual’ after Sian’s death, he responded: ‘I didn’t want anyone to lose their home.’
He added: ‘I’m not motivated by business, money and greed. I do not drive flash cars. Your opinion of me is wrong.’
But in a message to a friend, he complained: ‘I’m in bits mate. We were doing £90,000 a month [ie earning that much each month], the kids were happy and we were getting on well.’
