Particle.news
Download on the App Store

Robert Rhodes to Be Sentenced to Life for 2016 Murder After Rare Double-Jeopardy Retrial

A child’s disclosure to a therapist that Rhodes had coached them to lie produced the fresh evidence that overturned his 2017 acquittal.

Overview

  • Mrs Justice Ellenbogen is due to set the minimum term today at Inner London Crown Court following the automatic life sentence for murder.
  • A jury convicted Rhodes in December after the Court of Appeal quashed his earlier acquittal and authorised a second trial.
  • Alongside murder, he was found guilty of two counts of perjury, perverting the course of justice, and child cruelty.
  • Prosecutors said the child described coaching to maintain a false self‑defence story and secret phone messages left by Rhodes while on bail.
  • Dawn Rhodes was found with her throat cut in the family’s Redhill, Surrey kitchen after a 999 call, with evidence that Rhodes injured himself and cut the child’s arm to support his lies.