A woman allegedly driven to suicide by her husband ‘dreamed up’ a series of ‘horrific’ false allegations of domestic abuse as a way to escape from her boring and lonely life, a court has heard.
Christopher Trybus, 43, is on trial accused of manslaughter over the death of Tarryn Baird, who was just 34 when she ended her own life at their Swindon home in November 2017.
Jurors at Winchester Crown Court have heard that Trybus’s ‘tsunami’ of abuse – including rapes, frequent beatings and controlling and coercive behaviour – left Tarryn feeling her only way out was suicide.
But giving evidence in his defence today, Trybus told them he was ‘devastated’ by her death and could not fathom her making such claims against him.
His barrister Katy Thorne KC drew their attention to cases featuring false or malicious allegations featuring Leon Brittan, Ted Heath and the family of Madeleine McCann.
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She said: ‘People do do it. It is difficult to understand.’
When asked by Ms Thorne if he had ever been ‘viciously violent’ towards her, raped her or attempted to control her, Trybus said: ‘No, absolutely not.’
When asked if he loved her, he replied: ‘Yes, very much.’
Describing how he felt about Tarryn’s death, he said: ‘At the time, still, extremely sad, devastated, you can’t even describe it, it’s nothing you can prepare for.
‘It’s absolutely heartbreaking and devastating, the worse thing I have ever had to deal with in my life by far.’
He said of the allegations he now faces: ‘It’s such a conflict for me, you know, I loved her so much and we had a happy marriage, I would never dream she would say these things.
‘It’s so strange for me that she is saying these things and at the same time it’s landed me in all of this, I can’t say I am angry, it’s such a mix, I feel bad she was in such a place that she was saying these things, what was going through her mind, that she was saying this.
‘Then there is a little bit, I do not want to go as far as anger, it’s not anger, it’s a mix of feelings, I struggle to even put it into words.’
Before he stepped into the witness box, Ms Thorne gave another brief speech to the jury setting out the defence case.
She said: ‘Can you imagine being him?
‘The wife he will tell you he loved dearly and who he knew had been struggling with issues with her mental health for months and months one day takes her life by hanging.
‘Absolutely brutal. Imagine how that feels.’
Ms Thorne suggested they would feel ‘unbelievable grief’ at the loss, ‘confusion’ about why they had taken their own life, ‘guilt’ about not being able to save them, and ‘deep sadness’ about what must have been going through their head in the months before
But she added: ‘And then you find out that she has been saying all sorts of horrific things about you, what would you feel then?
‘How would you compute that? Is it anger, is it confusion, sadness that she was so troubled that she was doing this?
‘You will see when Christopher Trybus gives evidence that he feels all of these things.’
She told jurors that Trybus and Tarryn were a ‘loving couple living a very nice life’ – but ‘ultimately you may think quite a boring life, mundane life’, adding: ‘Perhaps that was the problem.’
Ms Thorne suggested Tarryn was ‘deeply troubled’ and had struggled with suicidal thoughts since before she came to the UK 10 years earlier from South Africa.
She added that when left alone while Trybus travelled abroad for work, ‘you may form the view that that’s when she goes down the hole, spiralling down, you may feel dreaming up these horrible, but fantastic we say, allegations’.
Tarryn, Ms Thorne said, became embroiled in a ‘warped game’ with health professionals, complaining of physical and sexual assaults ‘as a form of attention-seeking’.
The ‘one bit of spice in their relationship’, the barrister said, was their sex life.
‘Who knows why some people like to do this sort of stuff – this kinky stuff – in the bedroom?’ she said.
‘It has become very mainstream, there was even a movie about it, the 50 Shades and a book and it’s not always men who just want to do this stuff, it’s also women.
‘You may feel that women like to be dominated, tied up and spanked.
‘I am sorry we have to go there, it’s awkward for everyone, particularly Christopher Trybus who has to tell you all about his sex life with his deceased wife.’
Giving evidence, Trybus said their sex life could be ‘playful’.
He told the court that Ms Baird got ideas for the bedroom from 50 Shades of Grey.
The software consultant told jurors Tarryn liked it when he tied her hands up in the bedroom, adding: ‘She had watched 50 Shades [of Grey] movie and got some ideas there I think.’
He said that they bought a kit from Amazon in 2015/16 which included cuffs, rope, neck collar with leash, ball gag, a whip and blindfold.
Trybus said: ‘It’s cringingly embarrassing to talk about it.’
He said: ‘I think we used most things, we didn’t use the ball gag, it didn’t interest her, the cuff things, the collar we used, the blindfold I don’t remember, I remember the rope not being sexy at all.’
Trybus said the neck collar caused an injury to Tarryn but said she did not complain when it happened.
He said he didn’t mean it and apologised and that she replied: ‘Do not worry about it.’
Ms Thorne told jurors an audio recording found on Tarryn’s phone after her death, which prosecutors allege captured her being sexually assaulted, would be played several more times while Trybus gives evidence.
She likened it to an ‘optical illusion’, suggesting that while Tarryn’s cries could be taken as expressions of pain from a deliberate assault, there was more than one interpretation.
The barrister added: ‘She knew she was recording
‘You may want to ask yourselves was this a bit of a performance that she’s doing there for the recording?’
Ms Thorn said: ‘You will appreciate that in relation to some of the injuries the conclusion we ask you to draw is she was deliberately hurting herself in order to make false allegations
‘Is this another example of her fabricating evidence?’
The barrister drew the jury’s attention to ‘what you don’t hear’ on the recording.
She said Trybus is not ‘abusive, horrible or nasty’ in the recording, while Tarryn never asks him to ‘please stop’ or tells him, ‘you’re hurting me’.
‘If this was her in pain, why does she not say anything?’ she added.
Trybus, who is a software consultant, denies manslaughter, controlling and coercive behaviour and two charges of rape.
His trial continues.
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