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Shotgun Murder Wife Gets Sentence Cut

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Daily Echo - UK
February 27, 2007

Linda West had been married for nine weeks when she shot her husband

A wife who shot dead her husband while claiming she was dancing with a shotgun during a sex game, won a three-year reduction in her 16-year minimum prison term today.

Linda West, 49, was jailed for life at Winchester Crown Court last June for the murder of her 45-year-old husband Gregory.

At the Court of Appeal in London today, West lost a bid to challenge her conviction.

But she had her minimum sentence - the least she must serve before she can be considered for parole - cut to 13 years by three judges.

West said she was drunkenly dancing to the Shania Twain song, Man! I Feel Like A Woman, when she slammed the double-barrel weapon on to the floor while taking a bow and shot her marine engineer husband in the chest, killing him instantly.

But the prosecution said that the couple, who had been married for only nine weeks had rowed and West had loaded up the faulty shotgun and deliberately murdered her husband at their Southampton flat in May 2005.

Lord Justice May, Mr Justice Butterfield and Mr Justice King said there was no lurking doubt in their minds that would make the conviction unsafe.

However, they said that in their judgment the right minimum term was one of 13 years.

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