THE LOVER of the multimillionaire heiress Suzy Healey was yesterday cleared of her murder after he tearfully confessed to having “snapped” before choking her to death.
Richard Holtby, 38, a former car valet, recalled putting his hands around her neck and squeezing as she taunted him about another lover. He said that he “completely snapped” but insisted he did not mean to kill Ms Healey, the daughter of the kitchen tycoon Malcolm Healey.
A jury at Hull Crown Court found Holtby not guilty of her murder but guilty of manslaughter by reason of provocation. The judge, Mr Justice Wilkie, sentenced him to 8½ years in prison.
Holtby, who was unemployed and virtually penniless, began seeing Ms Healey, 39, in early 2005. He described the first months of their nine-month relationship as bliss and said they had informally agreed to marry and commissioned a lawyer to draw up a prenuptial agreement. However, the affair turned sour. Both were heavy drinkers and Ms Healey suffered from a bipolar depressive personality and volatile mood swings.
Carole Londesbrough, Ms Healey’s mother, said that Holtby was aggressive and suspected he had hit her daughter.
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By the summer of 2005 Ms Healey had tired of Holtby. She castigated him for being lazy and threw him out of her £1.9 million East Yorkshire home, Ellerker Hall. Holtby was forced to live with his parents in nearby South Cave while she left for a holiday in Benidorm.
On her return Ms Healey rang him to say she was having an affair with a man called Ehab. Two days later, on August 21, Holtby arrived at Ellerker Hall, confused and anxious. Ms Healey, who had spent the day celebrating her upcoming 40th birthday with friends, told him over drinks about text messages she had received from an ex-boyfriend and a bouquet of roses sent by a secret admirer.
Holtby told the court on Friday that when they retired to the bedroom and started kissing, she asked him to have sex with her, and to “make a better job than Ehab did”.
He said: “I grabbed her around the throat, I screamed at her, ‘What do you want? What do you want from me?’ She just went limp.”
Mr Justice Wilkie told Holtby that he had been subjected to only a low-level degree of provocation and that any remorse he had shown was for himself and not Ms Healey. Her revelations that she had another lover were not a “bolt from the blue”.
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“It is clear . . . Suzy Healey was a demanding person to befriend or become involved with,” he said. “She had many admirable qualities, including the loyalty of her many friends, family and employees, but they were not blinded to her problems, which were clear for all to see. Whatever her difficulties, which were essentially not of her own making, she did not remotely deserve to die at your hands.”
Ms Healey was married in 1988 to Tim Ross, chairman of Glenrose Fish Company. They had two daughters, Jasmin and Angelica, now teenagers, but the marriage ended after less than five years.
Afterwards, Ms Healey retreated to Ellerker Hall, where she turned the ten-acre estate into a sanctuary for unwanted or cruelly treated animals.
She is one of three children of Malcolm Healey, who made most of his £740 million fortune building up and selling the Hygena kitchens company.
Members of Ms Healey’s family, who were in court for the verdict, said yesterday in a statement: “Suzy was very special and, to those who knew her well, was a force for good, always cheerful and smiling. Although a private person, she enjoyed company and was in no way the reclusive figure painted by some sections of the media.”
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Detective Chief Inspector Sharon Fielding, who led the investigation, said: “A family has lost their daughter and sister and two teenage girls have lost their mother and that role is one that is irreplaceable.”