SNIPER WIFE

My full name is Claire Margaret MacDonald and I am 38 years old. My date of birth is the 18th of June, 1966. I am a trained primary school teacher; however, I am now doing home duties looking after my family.

My husband is Warren John MacDonald and we have been married for 17 years. We have lived at 600 Acheron Road, Acheron for 15 years … We have five children together. They are: John, who is the eldest and he is almost 10; Jillian, who is 8; Jennifer, who is almost seven; Jacqueline, who is five; and Douglas, who is two and a half.

Warren works as a surveyor on the Eildon Dam reconstruction … I last taught at Alexandra Primary in the middle of 1997 but I have done a bit of emergency teaching since then … We have 106 acres … Warren and I have built this house from scratch; just the two of us.

That was the start of the police statement Claire MacDonald made just hours after her husband was shot dead; after six bullets had been fired at Warren MacDonald when he walked up to try to start an old Land Rover on their ‘Breakaway Mountain’ property, almost 100km north-east of Melbourne. Two bullets slammed into his back. One hit his head. One scorched its way through the collar of his jacket and slammed into the Land Rover’s rear-vision mirror. One hit his chest. One missed. While under fire and severely wounded, Warren MacDonald had staggered behind and then into the Land Rover in a futile effort to dodge the remorseless attack on him. As well as screaming in pain, he had called out: ‘Where are you?’ but his attacker hadn’t told him. Mr MacDonald was gunned down on 30 September 2004 – 11 days after his 40th birthday and just a couple of days after he and his family had returned from a holiday. Moments later, his wife was by her fatally wounded husband’s side, tearfully calling an ambulance. She put a change mat under his head and a jacket over his bloodied body. A few hours later, Claire MacDonald talked to police about her nightmare:

On 19th September 2004, the whole family went for a holiday to Kangaroo Island, in South Australia … We got back home two days ago about 4.30pm on Tuesday 28 September. Yesterday, Warren started back at work … I started unpacking … My son, Douglas, had picked up conjunctivitis so I took him to the doctor about 10.15am. I went to … the supermarket and then to the chemist and then went to see Patty Brown to let her know we were home. She is a very good friend. I got home with the kids about 1.30pm.

We had visited friends in Adelaide and they had given me cuttings of lavender and some cacti … The children helped me to put six of them in pots. We did not have enough pots for the rest of them.

I started preparing tea about 5pm. Warren arrived home about 5.50pm. Warren spent some time at the computer while I was cooking dinner. We had tea about 7pm because Warren had been showing the kids photos from the trip on the computer. At 7.30pm the children normally go to bed but they stayed up a bit longer as The Dukes of Hazzard was on TV. The kids were in bed by 8.30pm.

About 15 minutes to 20 minutes later, Warren took either his laptop or a memory stick out to the car so he would not forget it in the morning. I was doing the dishes and Warren called me out because it was such a moonlit night … He said, ‘Let’s go for a walk.’ He decided to take his .22 rifle in case we saw a rabbit … We walked up the track past the sheds for about another two or three hundred metres. As we came up around the corner we could see a light about 50 metres away … I think the light was coming from a treed area at the edge of the clearing. We heard a couple of shots about a few seconds apart; maybe 15 seconds apart.

Warren told me to be very quiet and we would try to get closer to see who was there and what was going on. We crept along a pile of metal so that we weren’t seen. As we were getting to the treed area, we could see a man sitting on the ground. He had a torch in his left hand. The torch that he had was half the size of what police use and would take a D-cell battery. The torch was a dark colour. I could see that he had a dark-coloured or black backpack. It was like a day pack and it had a bed roll on top of it. Like something he might sleep in. I did not really see much of him until he stood up. The pack was strapped to his back.

Warren yelled at him and said: ‘What are you doing?’ That was when the guy stood up. Warren got angry and was yelling and swearing … he went ballistic … He told the man: ‘This is private property. You should not be here. Who do you think you are?’ He went on for about five minutes. Warren does not tolerate people who just walk on to other people’s property. The other guy started getting angry and started yelling back. He said he was only trying to get a couple of rabbits because he was hungry and he was not doing anybody any harm.

The guy was a bit taller than Warren, so about 185cm … The moon was out but it was dark. He had dark pants … He had like a polar fleece windcheater on with like half a zip. He had a dark-coloured beanie … He was scrawny to medium. He was an Australian but I didn’t see his complexion … He looked like he had not shaved for a couple of days. He had quite a thick stubble. He would have been a bit older than us – maybe in his 40s … I didn’t see the firearm. It might have been on the ground.

I moved away; I don’t like yelling … I was getting a bit frightened. Warren was shielding me from him a bit. The last thing I remember Warren saying to him was the direction of the nearest fence and if he did not leave, he would call the police.

The other guy started going through the fence and I heard him say: ‘OK, I’m going … Watch your back, mate. There’s no need to get upset’ – or something like that.

We stood there for a few minutes to make sure he was gone and we went back to the house.

The whole time Warren was just holding his rifle down by his side. He never threatened this guy with the rifle at all. The guy walked to our right to the fence and disappeared down the hill through the trees. He would have been heading in the direction of the rental property which is in Yellowbox Road. There is someone there now renting … and I think they drive a blue Commodore. Not a really old one and not a new one.

We didn’t notify the police at all. I think Warren felt he had scared him away and that would be the end of it.

I can’t remember the man picking up or carrying a rifle. Warren was obscuring my vision at times, so I can’t be sure. We didn’t go and search the treed area where the man had been. I don’t think Warren saw him as a threat. I haven’t seen this man before. Warren thought the same as me that the man was just a wanderer.

We went to bed about 10.30 to 10.45 after doing a few things.

On Thursday 30 September 2004 [today], Warren went to work as usual about 6.15am. Before Warren left, he told me to keep my eyes open and be careful.

I did some washing and cleaning after breakfast. It was about 11am before the kids were ready to go and we drove into Alexandra. I dropped some cub information to the group leader … Greg Kleinitz. He wasn’t home so I dropped the information just inside the flywire door … I went to the post office and posted some letters. Warren rang about 11.10am and asked me to … [organise] a hands-free kit into my car … He asked me how I was going and how things were going. It was just normal chitchat … I got home at about 12.15pm. I made lunches for the kids. After that I was down in the cellar packing away some of the camping gear. I had done what I needed to do, so I decided to find some extra pots to plant some more cuttings. I remembered that we had some pots up near the pile of rubbish near the cleared area. I was pretty tired so I decided to take the little Land Rover for a run up there because it had not been started for a while…

The girls were playing Leggo and Douglas was playing with his car. John was watching TV and playing with Douglas.

I drove up the track and I turned it around to face the way I had just come. At that point the car just stalled. I tried to start it a couple of times. I stopped then because I thought that I would flood the car or drain the battery. I went over to the pile of rubbish and found two pots and put them on a tree stump…

I walked back to the house … and checked the children were all OK … That must have been about 2.30pm. I rang the library to renew a book John had that was overdue. I could not get through and rang Telstra to see if there was a problem and spent about three-quarters of an hour on the phone with them.

About 4pm, I took some mince out the freezer to make dinner. I started to cook the dinner. I started making the spaghetti sauce. I did some more unpacking and later went up to the top tank to check the water supply about 5.15pm because I remember thinking Warren would be home soon. I walked back to the cleared area to give the car another try and start it up. I told John where I was going and asked him to tell Dad where I was and what happened. I told John I had my phone with me if he needed me.

I walked up to the cleared area and stopped for a few minutes because there were some kangaroos there. I went to the toilet over in the treed area. At this time, I heard a shot coming from the direction [of a neighbour’s property] … I heard a second shot, which seemed to come from behind me … It was so windy it could have been the first shot bouncing around in the wind.

I did not see anyone there. I thought everything was fine because the kangaroos were there and when I arrived there they were scared away. The kangaroos would not have been there if someone was in the trees, so I wasn’t really concerned. I walked to the car and tried to start it but it would not start…

I tried a couple of times and then I saw Warren walking up the track about 6.15pm. Warren had his .22 rifle with him – the one with the scope on it. I don’t know why Warren had it. He is such an over-cautious person.

I explained to Warren what had happened … I was at the front of the car when he got into it. We tried a couple of times to start it. He sat in the driver’s seat and tried to start it. He told me he would need some jumper cables and to bring my car up. Warren said: ‘Before you go, do you want a bit of nookie up in the bush?’ We ended up in amongst the pile of rubbish for a few, maybe five or ten minutes kissing and cuddling … I told Warren that I should go and check on the kids and go and get the jumper leads.

Warren had the bonnet up and was checking the leads when I left. While he did this, I jogged back to the house … After that I did not see him. I went inside to see if the kids were OK. I turned the dinner off. I got the keys to the white Land Rover as the good set of jumper leads are in that car … I chattered to the kids for a while … I told John I would only be a few minutes … I got into my car and drove back up the track … It was about 6.30pm. I was only in the house for a few minutes…

I got to the corner where the old Land Rover was and as I got around the corner, I could see Warren lying on the ground … I saw him lying there face down … It was like he had fallen out of the car. I drove right up to the car and went over to Warren … Warren was basically lying on his stomach and I grabbed him by the left shoulder and shook him and called his name. It was then that I saw the blood. The first blood I saw was on his face. Then a bit on his back and quite a bit on his left leg … I shook him but didn’t get any response … I raced to my car and got my mobile phone and called Triple 0 and asked for an ambulance and told them that I think my husband had been shot. There was a spot of blood on his jumper maybe the size of a 10-cent piece. Warren had an orange jumper on and the blood had come through. I saw lots of blood but I did not see any other spots, just the one. I assumed he may have been shot because of that spot and all the other blood.

I had my hand on his back and I thought I could feel his chest rising. I tried to roll him over but he was too heavy and I could not do it. I thought it best to leave him in the position he was in. I was talking to the ambulance officer and he told me to make sure his airway was clear and to get something to prop his head. I raced to the back of the car and got a jacket, a picnic rug and a change mat to prop his head and keep him warm…

I was getting pretty distraught and crying and I was not sure what to do and I was praying that the ambulance would get there soon. I was talking to Warren all the time – trying to get some kind of response. I did not really notice any other injuries. I used my hand to open his airway.

It was starting to get dark and I went and put the headlights on in my car. I didn’t know what to do.

I did not notice anyone else around me at the time I got there. I didn’t hear anyone and I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t hear any shots fired. I was back at the house and the telly was on. I didn’t hear anything.

I was worried about the kids and rang John and told him that daddy had been hurt and that an ambulance was on the way and just not to worry if he saw an ambulance going past. I asked him to look after the kids. I had to explain it a few times to John because he thought I was having a joke and I went back to Warren after that and cried.

I saw some headlights and was worried about someone not seeing them, so I walked back to the corner and got halfway when the police and ambulance arrived…

I think the magazine in Warren’s rifle is a five-shot magazine. The rifle is a .22 bolt action … I don’t know how many firearms Warren has, but there is a lot. I could not say when was the last time I fired any of the firearms. I haven’t fired any recently … I haven’t fired any guns … Not for ages.

I am not aware of anyone who would want to do this to Warren. I don’t think Warren would have any enemies. He would tell me if he had a problem with anyone at work but nothing that would escalate to this.

Warren and I have had our arguments like any other couple may have but nothing would cause me to do this. I certainly did not shoot Warren and I would not hurt a fly.

• • •

Claire MacDonald signed her police statement as ‘true and correct’ and ‘in the belief that a person making a false statement in the circumstances is liable to the penalties of perjury’ at 7.12pm on 1 October 2004. Shortly afterwards she spoke to Senior Constable Fiona Stevens – the policewoman who had been asked to interrogate the MacDonald children over their father’s death.

Senior Constable Stevens: She [Ms MacDonald] had become teary and she broke down at one stage and I touched her arm and reassured her and settled her down. Then we spoke a little further and then she actually reached over and touched me and broke down again…

I just said to her if she was in a position to reduce the trauma to the children then as a mother she needed to consider that and put the children first. She then replied to me: ‘I haven’t told them everything’, and I asked her to explain to me what she meant by that. She said: ‘I didn’t tell them about the way he treated me and the children.’ Then she went on to tell me of some emotional abuse and excessive discipline of the children by the father and that’s when she first broke down and cried uncontrollably and that’s when I touched her on the arm and comforted her and she actually settled down…

She regained her composure and I checked: ‘Is there anything you can think of to lessen the traumatic process?’ and she said: ‘Yes’ and I asked her: ‘What?’ and she said: ‘To tell the whole truth.’ And I said: ‘What is that?’ And she said: ‘I’ll tell about the abuse and the effect it’s had.’ And I said: ‘Anything else?’ and that’s when she took hold of my hand and broke down again and I actually moved beside her and was comforting her. And, at that time, I asked her if there was anything she wanted to tell the investigators and that’s when she said: ‘Yes, that I killed Warren.’ And I asked her to repeat it so that I was very, very clear about what she was saying to me and she said: ‘I did it. I shot Warren. I killed him’…

So I advised her that that was probably the hardest part: that she’d said that and now because of what she’d told me, I was obliged to tell her something very important and asked her to listen carefully. She said: ‘Yes’, and then I gave Claire MacDonald the caution and read her her rights.

• • •

So, two hours after signing her police statement, Ms MacDonald was once again being interviewed by investigating police. This time she told a very different story of how her husband – the man she started dating when they were in the same final-year class at Aquinas College in Melbourne’s east suburban Ringwood – came to be shot dead on their Breakaway Mountain property.

This time she admitted using her children to lure their father to his death. She told them to tell him to come up the hill to help her start the 1956 roofless Land Rover, which had stalled – but it hadn’t. She had then put on her husband’s army camouflage clothes and hat, and grabbed one of their 200 or so guns – a .22 bolt-action rifle with a long-distance sight. She wrapped it in a green towel just in case she bumped into one of the children on her way out. This quietly spoken mum and respected primary school teacher then hid in a clump of trees about 48 metres from the old Land Rover – her ambush bait. Then she waited and waited; for nearly two hours she lay in her sniper’s nest waiting for her prey. When he finally walked into her trap – wearing his orange fluorescent surveyor’s shirt and polar fleece top – she fired a shot into his back. She kept firing, emptying a five-bullet cartridge. When her husband staggered into the driver’s seat, she put a sixth bullet in her gun and fired. Warren MacDonald then slumped forward and toppled out of the car.

So much for ‘I wouldn’t hurt a fly’. So much for a mysterious, scrawny, unshaven wanderer with a fleecy halfway-zipped windcheater who might have exacted a fearsome revenge after being shooed away for trying to shoot some rabbits. So much for ‘kissing and cuddling’; for ‘a little bit of nookie’ with her husband. So much for not knowing of anyone who would want to kill Warren. It turned out Claire MacDonald had known better than anybody, someone who desperately – desperately – wanted him dead.

Detective: Claire, is it true that you made a Triple 0 phone call to the ambulance from your property at 600 Acheron Road, Acheron last night, being Thursday 30 September?

Ms MacDonald: Yes.

Detective: OK. Can you tell me what led up to you making that phone call?

Ms MacDonald: I had just had enough of the way that I had been treated and my children were being treated. And, because of the threats that he made to me, I decided that Warren didn’t deserve to live any more. I thought if I drove one of the Land Rovers up to the cleared area behind our sheds under the pretence that Warren needed to come up and get it started again, then I could hide and shoot him.

Detective: Can you tell me what happened?

Ms MacDonald: I fabricated a story and said to the children that I was going to get pot cuttings so they wouldn’t be anywhere near … I said I wouldn’t be long and that I had my mobile phone with me if John needed to ring me … I think I went up there about half past four…

Detective: What time was Warren due home?

Ms MacDonald: Any time after about 20 past five…

Detective: Did he in fact arrive home?

Ms MacDonald: He did and it was about a quarter past six.

Detective: And where were you when Warren arrived home?

Ms MacDonald: I was hiding in the trees in the cleared area … up past the sheds … There’s lots of metal rubbish and things that were supposedly going to be useful but never ever quite got there.

Detective: What happened when you were hiding there?

Ms MacDonald: Warren walked up to the car and looked around and I had the thought in my head that I had to do it. If I didn’t do it now, I would be the one that was dead … He came around the front of the car and he turned around. And I had his back in the sights and I just fired and he let out a cry … ‘Where are you?’ and just cries of pain … I think he probably knew I was up here somewhere and he was probably feeling guilty that he had pushed me to this…

And then I fired again but I don’t know where that one went … He moved around to the other side of the car, I think, maybe, to give himself something to hide behind … He was crying out in pain [she breaks down weeping] … I was pretty panicked. I actually couldn’t believe that I had carried it through and I just thought to myself: ‘I don’t care what happens, I’ll never have to be in bed with you again’ … He walked around to the other side of the car and I wasn’t sure that I had gotten him … I couldn’t go back. I had to just keep going until he was dead. I think I emptied the cartridge … I remember thinking he was about to drive away and I couldn’t let him live and so I got out the extra one I had in my pocket … I put that in the magazine and fired again and he slumped forward onto the steering wheel and then fell out of the car … I waited a few minutes and he wasn’t moving … I was still frightened, so I actually crept through the fence and tried to get close to the car to see what had happened …

Detective [on the video re-enactment in the ‘sniper’s nest’ treed area]: Can you just show us where you were?

Ms MacDonald: Yeah, I was kneeling down about here and I had my elbow here and the barrel was resting between these two branches … because I was shaking and I just wasn’t sure whether I was gonna do what I was gonna do [crying].

Detective: OK, was it to steady the rifle?

Ms MacDonald: Yeah … He didn’t deserve to live. He was hurting my children and he didn’t deserve to live and I just wanted him out of my life, out of my children’s lives.

Detective: Did it ever cross your mind to stop shooting because he was only injured and crying out and there was a chance he could have survived?

Ms MacDonald: No, I knew that while he was alive, it would have been worse. He would have set out to get me.

Detective: So you then made a decision to keep on shooting?

Ms MacDonald: Yep.

Detective: With what intention?

Ms MacDonald: Just so he wouldn’t survive.

She said she had to deliberately load each of the bullets she fired at her husband.

Detective: Have you used that firearm in the past?

Ms MacDonald: Yep…

Detective: Are you a member of any clubs, firearm clubs?

Ms MacDonald: The Shooters Association – which is so wrong, I know but – and the Antique and Historical Collectors Guild.

Detective: Have you ever shot in competitions?

Ms MacDonald: Yep.

Detective: Have you ever won any awards?

Ms MacDonald: One. I came second in my competition in Taggerty years and years ago but any competitions after that were really just for fun over at Seymour Black Powder Club…

Detective: And what made you take the firearm up to where you were?

Ms MacDonald: I just didn’t want to have any physical contact with him. I didn’t want to be close to him. And I thought: ‘If I use the gun that had the sight on it, that would do it’ … and I would not have to confront him.

Detective: When you shot Warren, how far away were you from him?

Ms MacDonald: Twenty or 30 metres.

Detective: What were you hiding behind?

Ms MacDonald: A fallen tree…

Detective: How many shots hit him?

Ms MacDonald: I think maybe one to his back, one to his head and I must have got him in his leg, I think. I don’t know. One hit the mirror…

Detective: … Did you continue to train the sights on his back?

Ms MacDonald: He was moving around. He had moved around to the other side of the car…

Detective: What was your intention when you were firing the rounds at him?

Ms MacDonald: Just to make sure he didn’t get up again.

Detective: Was it your intention to kill him?

Ms MacDonald: Yeah.

Detective: OK. When you finished firing the sixth shot, what did you do then?

Ms MacDonald: I just waited a couple of minutes and then I crept through the hedge, just around the fence, sorry, and walked along the other side of the fence to see if he really was dead.

Detective: And was he moving?

Ms MacDonald: No.

Detective: Did you physically go over and speak to him or touch him to see if he was alive or deceased?

Ms MacDonald: No. I was too scared … I went back to the house. I went in through the back door. Took off the shirt and hat that I was wearing and the towel that I had taken up there…

Detective: Before you walked over there what did you do with the rifle?

Ms MacDonald: I just left it lying on the ground there.

Detective: Why did you leave it there?

Ms MacDonald: I was just so confused and I thought that if I could make people think someone else had done it, then I wouldn’t need to worry about what happened to it…

Detective: Were you wearing anything on your hands?

Ms MacDonald: Yeah, just rubber disposable gloves.

She said that the camouflage shirt, hat and the green towel were all still unwashed in the laundry basket but she had burnt the rubber gloves in the living-room fireplace – ‘just to get rid of them’.

Detective: What did you do from then, after you’ve burnt the gloves?…

Ms MacDonald: Then I said to the kids that I had come back to get the jumper leads in my car. And I checked on tea and made sure everyone was OK. And then I said to John to look after them and Mummy would be back soon. Then I got the keys to the light Land Rover 110, which had a good set of jumper leads in it. So, I got the keys to that vehicle and got the jumper leads out just so that if anyone – just to make the story believable, I suppose … I put them [the leads] in the Land Rover Discovery … I drove it up to where the other Land Rover was, up near Warren.

And I walked over to him and put my hand on his back and told him how much I hated him for making me do this. And I spoke like that for about five minutes. I just told him how much I hated him. And then I got my phone out and rang Triple 0…

I just said I thought my husband had been shot and I need an ambulance and … then they put me through to an ambulance operator who asked me to go and make sure his airways were clear.

Detective: And did you do that?

Ms MacDonald: I did. Of course, I knew it wasn’t going to do anything…

Detective: Were you confident that he was dead already?

Ms MacDonald: I didn’t think he was breathing, but I didn’t want to touch him. I didn’t want to feel for a pulse or anything.

Detective: Did the ambulance operator give you any instructions?

Ms MacDonald: Just told me to, maybe, prop his head up … ‘Just try and make him comfortable.’ I went back to the Discovery and got out a nappy change mat and a jacket and a picnic rug and I put the change mat under his head and covered him with the jacket and the picnic rug, just to make it look like I was keeping him warm…

I went to where he was lying and I think I might have lifted his leg down from the car, that was hooked on the car and I put the little jacket over his shoulders. I didn’t want to touch him and so I used his hair to lift his head up to put the change mat under his head and then I covered him with the picnic rug … And just told him how much I hated him [she breaks down crying] and how I couldn’t believe he had pushed me to do this … I just couldn’t do it any more and I couldn’t see the children being treated the way they were and I thought: they’re so young and they just didn’t deserve to be treated the way they were. I just knelt there for ages – it seemed like ages – just crying and wishing that there had been some other way of dealing with it.

Detective: And what did you do after that?

Ms MacDonald: I switched the headlights on the car because it was getting dark … and I knelt back down beside him and, again, I just cried and told him that I wished he hadn’t made me do it, which seemed to help me so I was not angry any more.

Detective: And did you contact the children again?

Ms MacDonald: Yeah, I rang John because I was worried that they would get a fright when the ambulance drove past. I said to John that Daddy had been hurt and that an ambulance was coming and not to worry if he saw one going past. He said, you know, ‘Don’t play jokes, Mum’ … he said: ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ I had to tell him about three times that I wasn’t joking. I said: ‘Just keep everyone inside and look after everybody.’

Ms MacDonald apologised for lying about the scrawny wanderer.

Detective: Did you meet someone that was shooting or spotlighting in the paddock?

Ms MacDonald: No, but we did hear shooting and see a spotlight…

Detective: The man you described as being quite tall with a backpack…?

Ms MacDonald: Made it all up … [Crying] Sorry.

Detective: Do you want to tell us the background circumstances that led up to what happened on Thursday night, being the shooting of Warren?

Ms MacDonald: I think the single thing that sticks out most … From very early on in our marriage … five or six years into our marriage … it was a case of I just had to do what I was told … It was just even stupid things like he didn’t like me wearing make-up. He didn’t like me cutting my hair. He didn’t like me having half a teaspoon of sugar in my tea. Everything had to be done his way. I was just there to, really, be a slave, just to do what he wanted to do…

The alarm would go off at quarter to six. I would switch it off. I would get out of bed. I would make sure the fire was going. I would make his breakfast. I would make his lunch. I would make sure he had clothes to wear. Then I would wake him up…

He would humiliate me in front of people. He would make me take his boots off … and then say to people: ‘Why have a dog and bark too?’

I had to constantly provide him with drinks every night. It was my job to make sure that he had a glass of drink and it was always full. It was just always his way, everything.

He was always telling me how filthy I was and how I couldn’t keep any house that we had clean. I just wasn’t good at anything … I think I’m such a placid person that I believed that I loved him and I just wanted to make his life happy and do whatever I could for him.

Detective: Have you sought any counselling in relation to the way that you say he’s treated you?

Ms MacDonald: No.

Detective: Have you confided in friends or relatives?

Ms MacDonald: I had probably – just in the last 12 months – confided in Patty Brown … I just had to tell somebody … Like he was a cub leader and two of my children are cubs – John and Jillian. One day, we were all going to cubs and we had to go to the chemist first and because the chemist was taking too long to make the script up and he was going to be late, he said to me: ‘I’m going. You can walk up.’ He left me to walk from the main street of Alexandra to the other end of town just because he was in a bad mood for some reason. I think that was the first thing I told Patty…

Detective: Can you think of any course of conduct that you could have taken other than shooting Warren to get out of the bad situation that you found yourself in?

Ms MacDonald: On I don’t know how many occasions, when we’d had disagreements usually about my having milk at the table when it should have been in the fridge; or not having the floor vacuumed; or not having the dishes done; or not having his shirt ironed; or not having the kids’ fingernails trimmed; or something so stupid, he would just tell me what an arsehole I was and how I was making his life a misery and everything was my fault and that I should have been back at work earning money, instead of just taking every cent that he put in … He was constantly telling me how I didn’t have the right to say what things would get done or what things would get bought because I wasn’t bringing any new money into the family and that I should have been – in the seven years that I was at home doing nothing – I should have been able to work from home, or do something to provide the family with more income…

Detective: Has he ever been physically aggressive with you?

Ms MacDonald: Yes … Sometimes, if, maybe, I had not paid a bill or something stupid, he would get really angry with me and would say things like: ‘I could just punch you in the face,’ and he would bring his fist so close to my face or he would grab me by the scruff of the neck and – I haven’t told anybody this – he would always push me so hard on the chest … If ever we had an argument and the question of not living together came up, he would say if I ever left him that he would just put a bullet in my head and bury me somewhere and tell everybody that I had run away.

Detective: Did you take that threat seriously?

Ms MacDonald: Absolutely.

Detective: How often would he make that threat?

Ms MacDonald: At least half a dozen times that I can remember…

Detective: Did you ever make any attempt to leave home?

Ms MacDonald: No, I was too scared.

Detective: What did you think would happen if you did try to leave him?

Ms MacDonald: He would find me wherever I went and he would hurt me…

Detective: Apart from shooting Warren, what other options were available to you? For example, could you have collected up all the kids while Warren was at work and gone and stayed with a relative, or gone to the police station and told them what happened?

Ms MacDonald: I was just too frightened. I knew that he would just see it as all my fault.

Detective: Did those options enter your mind at all?

Ms MacDonald: They did, but I just dismissed them. I thought of just running away altogether and then I thought: ‘That’s not fair. This is the kids’ home. They shouldn’t have to leave. They shouldn’t have to be put through being just scared and moved around’…

Detective: Are you aware of refuges available to people that may wish to leave a particular situation and disappear?

Ms MacDonald: Yeah.

Detective: Did you consider any of these options?

Ms MacDonald: I just knew – the way he talked and the way he acted towards me – he would not rest. The way he treated the children, he absolutely adored them and he would not have allowed me to take them away from him.

Her husband may have adored his children but Ms MacDonald said the children were ‘absolutely terrified’ of their father.

Ms MacDonald: Whenever he was due home, everyone instantly went on eggshells and there was not allowed to be any toys within sight, it was just: ‘Quick, clean up before Dad gets home.’

A few months ago, Warren, John and Jillian had gone down to check the dam, which is below the house, in the army Land Rover and when they came back John and Jillian went straight to bed and Warren said to me: ‘John slammed the door, the little shit-for-brains.’ I thought: ‘Oh, here we go.’ And then I went up to see John and just to talk quietly to him without Warren knowing I was talking to him [getting upset] and he said to me that he just tried to close the door and Warren grabbed him by the scruff of his shirt and kicked him three times on the bottom for slamming the door. Another incident was when we were playing football and John [she weeps] had gone to kick the ball when one of the girls had reached for it and, to teach him a lesson, Warren kicked John’s hands to remind him he shouldn’t kick a ball that’s near someone else’s hands…

They were all absolutely terrified of him … If he wasn’t around or he had to stay at work late or had to work on a Saturday, the kids thought it was the best thing: that they could be themselves and not have to worry about anything. [breaks down crying]…

Detective: Did he ever injure any of the children?

Ms MacDonald: John suffered lots of bruises.

Detective: Were they ever viewed by a doctor?

Ms MacDonald: No.

Detective: Were you afraid to take the children to a doctor?

Ms MacDonald: Absolutely…

She said John had been Warren’s ‘whipping boy … someone smaller than him that he could exercise power over’. He hadn’t been as violent towards his daughters but would regularly spank them and John with a long, flat ‘smacking stick’ kept on the top shelf in the lounge cupboard.

Ms Macdonald: He used to ask me to get it down and hand it to him and he would make the children come over into this area and he would say: ‘Now bend over and touch your toes,’ and they were so scared ’cause they knew what was going to happen and he used to say: ‘No, move a bit. I can’t get a good enough swing,’ and he would hit them … he would smack them on the bottom … He would make me smack them and then say: ‘No, that wasn’t hard enough, do it again.’

Detective: And did you do that?

Ms MacDonald: Well, I had to otherwise he would have done it harder…

Detective: How is the children’s relationship with their father?

Ms MacDonald: I know John hates him.

Detective: Would he admit that?

Ms MacDonald: He has admitted it to me…

Detective: Have you ever sought an intervention order against Warren?

Ms MacDonald: I was too scared to.

She said that there were over 200 guns in the house but that most of them were ‘collectables’ and that Warren had never threatened her with a gun.

Detective: Is there any reason that you chose a firearm to kill Warren?

Ms MacDonald: I just thought: I wouldn’t have to have any contact with him; I wouldn’t have to touch him; I wouldn’t have to struggle; I wouldn’t have to be near him.

Detective: How long had you thought about killing Warren?

Ms MacDonald: Wednesday night … Seriously. I probably thought quite often how much happier we would all be if just was not in the picture…

Detective: What was different on Wednesday night that made you come to that decision?

Ms MacDonald: I had gone down to our cellar, which is absolutely jam-packed full of stuff because the house is not finished and we don’t have anywhere to store anything, And again that’s my fault – I don’t know how. Down in the cellar is where I keep boxes of potatoes … and I had gone down to pack away some camping stuff, I think, from the holiday and was taking too long and he came down to see what I was doing and straightaway he said: ‘What’s in these boxes?’ I said: ‘Potatoes.’ He said: ‘What’s this box?’ and there were four boxes on a covered coffee table and he started yelling how I couldn’t even store potatoes properly and how they were all shot and I was poisoning him by feeding him potatoes that had been shot … and he started throwing the boxes of potatoes around and there was just stuff everywhere.

He even said he had been bringing scrap paper home from work [starting to cry] and I had it stored down there and I didn’t even store that properly [breaks down crying].

I had some artificial flowers that were on the top shelf and he said: ‘What are these? Who bought these?’ and … I said my mum bought them … he just threw them on the floor and stomped all over them because it was something of mine.

Detective: Was that before or after you went for your walk on Wednesday night?

Ms MacDonald: That was after … just before we went to bed about 10 o’clock.

Detective: That was when you decided to take some sort of action?

Ms MacDonald: He actually threatened to punch me again because I was, you know, I was so slack and ‘What do you do all day?’ and I couldn’t even throw a box of potatoes out and he started yelling at me and telling me what an arsehole I was … He was poking me on my arm telling me how useless I was and I was just a shit-for-brains and a moron and didn’t have a brain … He told me that I would have to clean it up tomorrow. ‘Get rid of the potatoes,’ he said … It went on for about 10 minutes … and he looked at me with such anger and said: ‘I could just punch you in the face,’ and then I started yelling back at him – which I don’t usually do – because I’d just had enough and he just walked out.

Detective: What did you say to him, when you yelled back?

Ms MacDonald: I don’t know – how … he didn’t appreciate anything I did and I spent my whole life revolving around looking after him and his moods and just never got anything back…

Detective: And what was his reaction to you standing up for yourself?

Ms MacDonald: He didn’t like me yelling back at him and he just put his fingers in his ears … He just kicked the wall and said: ‘Get out … Get upstairs.’ We went to bed and he said: ‘Right, I want anal sex.’ This was his way of paying me back for doing the wrong thing because he knew I didn’t like it and he knew it hurt. It was just his way of getting back at me.

Detective: And did that actually take place?

Ms MacDonald: Yeah.

Detective: And did you consent to that?

Ms MacDonald: I suppose I did but … it was always a case of I just wanted to get it over and done with because if I ever refused, he would tell me what a cold, frigid bitch I was and how he wished that he had been with more women. It was just easier to get it over and done with.

Detective: Was he aware that you weren’t happy about what was happening?

Ms MacDonald: Yep. He was very much aware of the fact that he never seemed to make me happy. He was never able to do anything for me – I just couldn’t – and that was another point that was my fault because it’s all in your brain and you should be able to have an orgasm and every second night he would have to have sex – every second night. It was very rare that we would go more than two days without him demanding sex … I hated it.

Detective: Did you ever tell him: ‘No’, that you didn’t want to have sex?

Ms MacDonald: Quite often.

Detective: What was his reaction to that?

Ms MacDonald: Just be: I’m a cold, frigid bitch and ‘I don’t know why I married you,’ and ‘I should just go out and pay somebody’…

If I was too tired or I wasn’t well or even if I had my period, or anything, he would just say: ‘Just lie there. I just need to empty out.’ He wouldn’t care whether I wanted to or not … if I suggested that I didn’t want to, he would start calling me names and say I was a frigid bitch … His favourite term was ‘the Ice Queen of Acheron’, he used to call me if I said ‘No’ or didn’t want it.

Detective: And the kids [who all slept in the same room as their parents because the unfinished home only had one bedroom], did they sleep through all this?

Ms MacDonald: They did, and that was another reason: I thought if I make a scene or if I make a noise or anything they would wake up and see what was going on [crying].

Detective: So you were afraid for them, were you?

Ms MacDonald: Very much…

Detective: Did he ever physically force himself upon you sexually?

Ms MacDonald: Yes … He was actually constantly looking at pornographic images on the internet and he was seated at the computer of a night-time, every night, and he would be on the computer and he would get himself excited by what he was watching and then he would say: ‘Look, this girl can do it. Why can’t you?’ referring to blow jobs and I just hated it and my teeth always got in the way and so he would hit me on my head and felt and tapped my teeth and I’d say to him: ‘I can’t help it. I can’t do it.’ And he would say: ‘What a load of frog shit,’ or ‘You’re just an arsehole,’ or something like that.

Ms MacDonald said that after the potato tantrum in the cellar and the punishment sex afterwards, she lay in bed planning to kill her husband.

Ms MacDonald: I just thought if I could make it look like someone else had done it, then he would be dead and we could all just move and lead a normal life.

Detective: When you were lying in bed thinking about this, tell me the thoughts that were going through your mind as to how you thought you might be able to do this and get away with it.

Ms MacDonald: I suppose the only thing I really thought of was wearing gloves, so that there would be no powder residue and my fingerprints would not be directly on the gun.

She said she decided to take the old Land Rover up – ostensibly to get the pots so that her children did not see their father shot.

Ms MacDonald: I thought that if I took the car up there, so it was away from the children, under the pretence of getting some of these pots, then Warren needed to come up … I could just lie and wait for him.

Detective: Was the intention of killing him once you got into that position?

Ms MacDonald: I still didn’t know until probably he was walking up the track that I was actually going to go through with it…

Detective: Is it correct that you’ve changed your mind, and now want to tell the truth about what occurred? What was it that changed your mind to do that?

Ms MacDonald: Fear, I think … It was going to be so much worse for the children and I just don’t want to put them through any more.

• • •

At Claire MacDonald’s trial in the Supreme Court of Victoria in February and March 2006, the defence’s main argument was that she was not guilty of murder because she had acted in self-defence: if she hadn’t shot her husband he would have killed or seriously injured her. Its fallback was that she was only guilty of manslaughter: she had been provoked into temporarily losing self-control.

The trial heard that Warren MacDonald had been a dedicated and able surveyor. Workmate Roger Mottram said that Warren had been proud of his children and had photographs of them around his office. He said that he had been a ‘very hard worker’ but that it wasn’t all about work. At times ‘he was very jovial, boisterous’, and he ‘liked to play the odd joke or two’. Under cross-examination, it turned out he hadn’t appreciated all of Warren’s ‘jokes’.

Mr Mottram: He came to work one day with a computer memory stick. He asked me to open it for him … It came up with rather explicit pornography and I had quite a lot of trouble turning it off quickly … He [Warren] thought it was funny.

Nobody was denying that at home Warren MacDonald was a disciplinarian. The dead man’s retired police officer father, John MacDonald, told the court his son had been fascinated with cars and guns since childhood. He said Warren had collected about a dozen Land Rovers. He said Warren had been dedicated to his work as a surveyor and had worked on freeways and on the Australian Grand Prix track at Melbourne’s Albert Park. He said his son had always been available for him but agreed that at home, Warren was strict.

John MacDonald: With the family, Warren was the boss … He ran the show. Nobody told him what to do or how to do it. He did it himself, his way and you wouldn’t cross him … He was a very proud father. He was always wanting to show his children off … but very much a disciplinarian. If the children did something amiss, they were punished by way of physical exercise … normally push-ups, that type of thing.

Patricia Brown – Claire MacDonald’s closest friend – agreed.

Ms Brown: The children were wonderful children and very well behaved but, you know, if I sort of gave them a biscuit to eat, they had to all line up in a row and they weren’t allowed to move until they had eaten the biscuit … And if they did something wrong, they were made to get down on the floor or on the ground and do push-ups – even the two-year-old, which I thought was a bit harsh.

A former teacher colleague and friend of Claire’s, Leanne Mits, remembered the MacDonalds coming to her place for lunch and eight-year-old John doing something to annoy his father.

Ms Mits: Warren pointed a finger and in a strong military voice demanded that John ‘Drop’ in the kitchen and ‘Do 10’. John dropped and did 10 push-ups, and stood up at attention waiting for his dad to dismiss him.

Farewells were also done with military precision.

Ms Mits: He would say: ‘Claire, we’re leaving. Get the children in the car.’ They would be gone in five minutes.

John MacDonald told his daughter-in-law’s murder trial that his dead son insisted his wife do all the work in the house. If he wanted a drink, Claire would have to get it. Ms Brown agreed.

Ms Brown: One particular incident which really upset me was at his birthday party … Claire was running around trying to look after the five children … I arrived a little late and everybody else had eaten and Claire hadn’t eaten as she was jumping up and down, jumping up and down … and Warren just indicated to her by saying: ‘Get me a drink,’ like this. And I thought: ‘Well, that’s a bit rude. She’s trying to look after the children. Her dinner’s on the table getting cold and he expects her to run after him.’ And I must admit, I got a bit angry and said to her: ‘Look, for goodness sake, I will get the drink for him’ – you know, I had eaten – and then I said something like: ‘Tip it on his head,’ which wasn’t the right thing to say but I was angry because he was treating her in such a manner.

Another friend of Claire’s – Lynne Orchard – remembered going to lunch at Warren and Claire’s.

Ms Orchard: Claire was just about to sit down to eat her lunch and Warren decided he wanted beetroot in his sandwich and that he wasn’t going to eat it without it. So she had to go down to the cellar … Because they buy in bulk, not everything is labelled and the first tin she opened was baked beans. He told her she was stupid and to go and get another tin and he wasn’t going to be home the following day but all she and the children were allowed to eat were these baked beans. They were not to go to waste and that was all they were allowed to eat the following day.

Another friend of Claire’s – Anne Hail – said that Warren was constantly telling his wife she was ‘dumb’ or a ‘stupid woman’ or ‘Bitch!’ or ‘Whore!’. She had been particularly appalled at how he treated her while she was in labour with their first child. She said the labour had gone incredibly quickly and the MacDonalds had dropped around at her house because she was going to be Claire’s support, before making the long trip to the hospital.

Ms Hail: Claire was throwing up in my sink – as often happens as you progress through labour – and Warren was out of his tree because he hadn’t had dinner and Claire hadn’t prepared the dinner and it was time to eat.

Defence barrister: So she’s going into labour – vomiting – and he’s worried about the fact that he hasn’t had his dinner?

Ms Hail: That’s true.

She said at the hospital, while his wife was in labour, Warren went to get himself some fish and chips and that he was gone for most of the labour, but not all…

Ms Hail: He happened to be there when Claire was crying and upset … He got up off the chair that he was sitting on at the end of the delivery room bed, took her by the shoulders and gave her a good shake and said to her to pull herself together and to get on with the job of delivering his child. I thought I should have slapped him, but I didn’t.

She said that as well as guns and Land Rovers, Warren also had a large collection of war-related books, magazines, videos and DVDs. Ms Hail also remembered how Warren MacDonald had once killed a general conversation about married people breaking up.

Ms Hail: Warren stopped the conversation at that point and incredibly aggressively said to Claire: ‘If you ever leave me, I will track you down and kill you.’ I was frightened and I didn’t know what to say. She [Claire] didn’t know what to say and the conversation pretty much ended there.

She said Warren had insisted Claire learn to shoot. She said he had believed it was ‘important for her because she was out on the property often on her own with the kids, she should know how to shoot snakes’.

The MacDonalds – as Claire told police – had built their dream home ‘from scratch’ themselves. To do so, for two years, the growing family lived a nightmare primitive life in the windowless cellar. Even when she was heavily pregnant, Warren MacDonald insisted his wife help out building the house. She was his brickie’s labourer – fetching the bricks and mixing the cement.

Ms Brown: She would be wheeling the wheelbarrow of bricks and Warren would be saying: ‘Hurry up, Claire. Hurry up!’ He’d be laying the bricks and shouting out: ‘I need more mud. Hurry up!’

Ms Brown agreed that Claire was a ‘fairly gentle soul’ – quiet and quite timid. She said that she had said her husband could be aggressive but she would ‘never really run him down’. Ms Brown said she noted that Claire looked exhausted on the day she returned from the Kangaroo Island holiday.

Ms Brown: I asked her: ‘Claire, Are you OK?’ and she said: ‘Not really,’ and I said: ‘Well, you should feel great, you’ve just had a holiday.’ She said: ‘It was a nightmare … It was just terrible … Warren had us up in early hours of the morning, just when it got light and I had to get the children ready – dressed and fed – and then he would take us on a long hike.’ And I said: ‘But that’s ridiculous’ – the baby was only two – and she said: ‘I know. It was a nightmare.’

She said the baby would get upset and was crying and Warren would then become upset with the baby and then she’d have to carry the baby. It’s the most that Claire’s ever opened up to me.

I said: ‘What are you going to do?’ and she said: ‘Well, I have got to do something because when it’s affecting my children I have to do something and I said: ‘What will you do?’ and she said: ‘Well, I will leave him,’ and I said to her: ‘Well, you have to be careful and make sure you leave when he’s at work because you know he gets very angry and there are guns on the property.’ She said: ‘I know.’ I said: ‘How will you manage?’ She told me that she had rung Centrelink to find out what sort of monetary allowance she would be getting and she said: ‘I think I could manage on that,’ and I said: ‘Well, please don’t leave unless he’s at work and if things get really tough and you’ve got to get out in a hurry … just come to me.’ She said: ‘I will,’ but I didn’t believe she would have wanted to involve me because that’s the sort of person she is…

She’s very gentle, a wonderful mother and very private. Claire always seemed to be sort of anxious and trying to please and being careful of what she said in front of Warren. It was very different when she was on her own: she was much more relaxed.

Psychiatrist Daniel Sullivan told the trial Claire MacDonald was a classic case of ‘learned helplessness’ – where abused women get so conditioned to their lot they feel they can’t leave even very unpleasant or threatening relationships. He said the term dated back to a 1960s experiment on dogs. Psychologists found that after a while dogs subjected to electrical shocks in a place they could not escape did not even try to escape when they could.

• • •

Prosecutor Ray Elston SC rejected Mrs MacDonald’s claim that she had killed her husband in self-defence.

Mr Elston: In a situation of an unhappy marriage, where there had been disharmony for quite some time, the accused determined to finalise the matter, and in a cold-blooded, determined and carefully calculated way executed her husband … The actions of the accused, I say to you, were not done in any way … to defend herself from the actual or threatened violence of her husband … Did the episode in the cellar justify his execution? Did the unhappy marriage justify his execution? … What happened … was simply somebody inflicting the ultimate punishment on somebody who has imposed upon her and her children a lifestyle which is just unacceptable…

She had never been bashed or injured by him. She’d never left him … She told police: ‘He just didn’t deserve to live.’ That’s not self-defence, ladies and gentlemen, that’s simply retribution for a sad and unhappy marriage and murder is not the solution to that situation. That’s merely retaliation for the past.

He denied it was a case of a woman who had learned helplessness, who felt she had no other way of getting out of a horrible marriage, finally snapping. He pointed out that Ms MacDonald had supportive friends and had contacted Centrelink to investigate what help she could get if she left the marriage. He said she was an intelligent woman – a qualified teacher – who had the wherewithal to leave her husband. He also said that she had plenty of opportunities to leave when Warren MacDonald was working his long hours. He said when police had asked her whether she had considered the option of leaving her husband, Ms MacDonald said she had, but that she had dismissed it because it was unfair that her children should have to leave their home.

Mr Elston: What you have when you watch that video [of police interviewing Ms MacDonald] is somebody who has determined to end a life which is causing her misery. As tragic as you may think it is, it’s a confession to murder … She determined she wanted her husband out of her life, out of their children’s lives because as she said: ‘He just didn’t deserve to live any more.’ Those are her words…

You can understand that attitude, but that’s not a justification for killing someone: ‘I thought of the options but I dismissed them because I think I can get away with it’; ‘It’s just not fair on the kids to make them move around so I will kill him, point the finger at somebody else, I will get away with it and we can get on with our lives’…

This is not a woman who over the years had become utterly helpless … She had not extricated herself from this relationship and she has got five children but, on balance, in a civilised community there are a number of options that exist for people who have friends, who have workplaces to go to, who have a community to live in.

She was anything but helpless, but has simply made the wrong decision to extricate herself from a marriage. At the end of the day for her, here was a continuation of a life she had come to loathe and a husband she loathed, and she determined to finish that.

The prosecutor also denied that when she killed her husband, Ms MacDonald could have been provoked by her husband’s actions into temporarily losing her self-control.

Mr Elston: She was not paralysed with fear. She chose a path which punished her husband for their life together and adopted a solution which ensured that their life was terminated, their marriage life was terminated. The result of that is there is no … self-defence; there is no provocation and loss of self-control: what you have is murder.

She spends the day … planning the killing of her husband … Two have hit him in the back; one in the face; one in the chest; one has gone whizzing past through the collar of the jacket and into the rear-vision mirror: that’s five on target, which is not bad shooting, you might think. The sixth is manually loaded. All of this is consistent with a clear, purposive, steady resolve to shoot him to death.

Thereafter follows the bogus call to Triple 0 with the pretended concern for the husband and the pretence of helping the executed husband … It’s clear she has determined to lie and point the finger at some transient…

‘Warren didn’t deserve to live any more’ – that’s what she said. ‘Warren didn’t deserve to live any more’: judge, jury and executioner.

Ms MacDonald’s barrister, James Montgomery, denied that his client’s marriage was just an unhappy marriage that should have or could have ended up in the Family Court with some typical argie-bargie over the children by warring parents – instead of with the husband being gunned down by his camouflaged wife from a sniper’s nest.

Mr Montgomery: What was it that caused Claire MacDonald to shoot her husband that day apart from any other day? … Was it to get her out of a sad and unhappy marriage, according to the prosecution? Was that it? Was it a sad and unhappy marriage and should it have ended up in the Family Court? Or was it a marriage where the husband was a sadist, a rapist who dominated and controlled his wife and children through fear?

What sort of marriage is it where a husband exacts punishment, metes it out by anally raping his wife … It doesn’t matter who the woman is, if you have sex with her without consent, that’s rape. If you have it in circumstances where you are using it as a form of punishment, that’s an aggravating feature.

On the night before the shooting down in that cellar … in an unprecedented form of action … he’s thrown things around like potatoes and boxes and flowers from her mother … He’s poking her in the chest saying: ‘I’ll punish you’, ‘I will punch you’. He’s kicking the wall: ‘Get upstairs and take your punishment.’

Now, apparently, that wouldn’t … cause a person to lose self-control, according to the prosecution. It wouldn’t cause Claire MacDonald to think this was a … threat to her safety, a real threat to her health, that some really serious injury was forthcoming?

What options does she have? Take the gun out and shoot him while he is asleep in front of the children? I don’t think so. She can’t leave because she knows … he said in front of other people, he’ll hunt her down and shoot her and bury her. How does she deal with it? She’s threatened and out of control and that’s how she shoots her husband.

Let’s put in context what the prosecution said to you ad nauseam that she said to police: ‘He didn’t deserve to live.’ What in fact she said when she first brought this up was: ‘And because of the threats that he made to me, I decided that Warren didn’t deserve to live any more.’

And she is asked: ‘What happened while you were hiding there?’ – this is in the bushes – and she says: ‘Warren walked up to the car and looked around and I had the thought in my head that I had to do it – I just – if I didn’t do it now, I would be the one that would be dead.’

What you have here is a woman who has been abused physically, sexually, psychologically by her husband, culminating in the incident in the cellar which produced in her the fear of a continuing threat and also causes her to lose self-control. What option does she have? ‘Let’s go to a counsellor’? Can you imagine Warren MacDonald going to a counsellor? What was she to do? Punch him back and try to strangle him?

How does a woman who is physically unequal with the man cope with that threat? Theirs is a house full of guns, you would not be surprised that instead of embarking on an unequal physical struggle, she would think of a gun. There is a gun culture up there…

The prosecution says: but there was all that planning. Well, let’s think about the planning. She takes a gun that you can assume would be immediately traced back to that house. Pathetically, she puts on rubber gloves and burns them afterwards while at the same time leaving at the scene the most incriminating item of all – the rifle – in the position in which it was used. It’s not much of a murder plan.

The story she told was clearly implausible. It was a story borne out of panic, confusion, fear and a desire to avoid the fact that it was her who shot her husband – not that she murdered him…

This is a very tragic thing that has occurred. This was a very tragic marriage relationship up there on Breakaway Mountain. When a woman, after being threatened by a husband who is out of control and then raped by him, feels so threatened and out of control that she shoots him and kills him, how could you be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that that is murder…

If you are not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that she was not acting in self-defence, you have to acquit her…

After she fired the shots, she was screaming at him: ‘Why did you make me do this? … The prosecutor has spoken to you about a civilised society. A civilised society is not reflected by the behaviour of Warren MacDonald in his marriage. That’s not the way civilised people behave…

When you add all that up [Warren MacDonald’s reign of fear over his wife and children] and you consider the expert evidence [that Claire MacDonald had learned helplessness] and you consider what happened the night before [in the cellar and then in bed while their children slept in the same room] … a civilised society – which you represent – would not convict her of murder but would acquit her.

• • •

On 3 March 2006, the verdict of the seven women and five men on the jury was announced – 17 months after Warren MacDonald was gunned down and a day and a half after they started deliberating. Was Claire MacDonald guilty or not guilty of murdering her husband? ‘Not guilty.’ Was she guilty or not guilty of her husband’s manslaughter? ‘Not guilty.’ As the verdicts were announced, Ms MacDonald gasped and then broke down weeping; one of the women on the jury wiped away tears.

Justice Geoffrey Nettle: Mrs MacDonald, you have been found not guilty: you are free to go.

Outside, as she walked down the street pursued by reporters, a pale and still-teary Ms MacDonald told them: ‘I just want to go home.’