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13-01-2005 Scotsman Murderer's ex-wife says his violence drove them apart By Gethin Chamberlain THE former wife of the Scottish soldier who killed himself after murdering student Sally Geeson last night broke down in tears as she spoke publicly for the first time about the years of violence she suffered at his hands. Liane Atkinson cradled her head in her hands as she described how David Atkinson's attacks had twice driven her to report the 31-year-old Lance Corporal to police during their short and turbulent marriage. But she said she still found it incredible that he was capable of murder: "He was not always good, but he was my husband," she said. At her home in a council flat above a supermarket and a bakery in the middle-class German market town of Krefeld in the Rhine valley, the 27-year-old sobbed as she tried to come to terms with the news. "I cannot believe he would have done that to anyone," she said. "Even harder to believe is that he has killed himself. I could almost imagine that this is a case of mistaken identity. "This is a nightmare. Even if he has done this, I cannot ignore the fact that he is still the father of my little girl and we will always be connected to him." The couple were married on 3 July 1995 in Mrs Atkinson's home town of Wegberg and their daughter, Elenor, was born the following year. The family lived in army quarters in Monchengladbach and when Atkinson returned to England, his wife and child moved with him into accommodation in Mill Hill, London. But she said Atkinson's violent outbursts eventually drove them apart. She faced years of abuse at the hands of her husband, reporting him to the police on two occasions - in 1996 and 1997. "They were not sexual attacks, but violent ones," she said. "But that he would commit a crime as serious as murder I find incredible." Mrs Atkinson said she took no comfort from her former husband's death. " I will not stab him in the back, whatever he did," she said. "I will not speak badly against him, even though we have not been in contact for three years." She broke the news of her former husband's death to Elenor and her other child, five-year-old Lukas, on their return from school. Mrs Atkinson herself learnt the news from two German police officers. Senior police commissioner Gerd Hoppmann said: "We were informed only this morning by the British police that we should contact Mrs Atkinson and let her know her husband had taken his life. "We have not been informed of the context in which his death occurred, or of any crimes he might have committed, but we will of course be looking into whether there are any outstanding investigations into Mr Atkinson, particularly during the time he spent in Germany." Yesterday another of Atkinson's victims, a Polish primary school teacher, described how he had grabbed her, dragged her into his car and tried to pull her clothes off before her screams attracted attention. He then bundled her out of the vehicle. The woman, named only as Katrin, was 18 at the time. Bizarrely, she later received a phone call from Mrs Atkinson and learned he crawled into his wife's bed after the attack and confessed: "I have done something bad, something evil, again." Atkinson was court martialled over the attack and found guilty of unlawful imprisonment. Katrin shed more light on the years of abuse Mrs Atkinson suffered at his hands. She said that the phone call from Mrs Atkinson came out of the blue two years after the 1997 attack - for which Atkinson spent eight months in military custody awaiting trial. Katrin said Mrs Atkinson had poured out her heart about the beatings she endured at the hands of her "psychopathic" husband, and begged for her help in getting him imprisoned. "His wife phoned me from the UK. She said he had attacked her several times, including a few times with a knife. She said she wanted to go to the police - not the army - once and for all and get him locked up. "She begged me to come with her and I agreed. But she was very frightened. He hit her and said he would kill her. "She was petrified. She swore she would come to Germany on the Monday. "Liane told me that on the night of the attack on me that he came home sweating. And he said, 'I have done something bad, something evil, again'." Katrin accused the army of rallying round Atkinson to protect him from the worst of the allegations. "The army was protecting their own," she said. "The army is guilty for Sally's death. The court martial was a whitewash." Last night an army spokesman denied that Atkinson had been treated leniently. "You wouldn't court martial someone if you did not think it was serious," he said.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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