Woman to be sentenced over text to man who then committed murder
Sarah Bramley’s ex-partner killed her lover after she sent him a compromising picture.
A woman will be sentenced on Monday for sending an intimate picture to her ex-boyfriend who then murdered the man in the image out of “jealousy”.
Sarah Bramley, 29, pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court last month to encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence.
The defendant, of Langdale Road, Darlington, sent former partner David Saunders, 33, a picture of her performing a sex act on her new lover, Michael Lawson, 34.
Bramley will be sentenced on the basis she sent the image believing her ex-partner would carry out a common assault, rather than commit murder.
But in the early hours of July 1 last year, shortly after receiving the photo, Saunders stabbed father-of-one Mr Lawson through the heart.
In December, Saunders was jailed for life at Teesside Crown Court with a minimum term of 22 and a half years, after he admitted murdering Mr Lawson in Darlington.
At the time, Judge Stephen Ashurst told the murderer: “Jealousy was very much at the heart of your behaviour.
“Ultimately a life was needlessly lost because of a loss of control.”
Bramley was granted bail and will be sentenced at the same court in October.
She was not in the country when Saunders was sentenced.
At the time, Judge Ashurst said of the vicious texts the killer swapped with his ex: “They do you and they do Sarah Bramley no credit whatsoever because ultimately a life was needlessly lost because of a loss of control.”
