THE actions of a man who allegedly murdered his wife with a sledgehammer were deliberate and planned, a court was told.

George Kibuuka admits hitting his wife Margaret twice and slitting her throat as she lay sleeping next to one of their children.

Yesterday Winchester Crown Court heard prosecution and defence barristers make their closing statements.

Jurors must now decide whether Kibuuka, 48, was suffering from an abnormality of mind that substantially diminished his responsibility for what he did.

Nigel Lickley QC, prosecuting, referred to forensic psychiatrist Dr Richard Badcock who had said that the planning and execution of the killing was inconsistent with a man with a personality disorder because it was “too ordered and structured”.

He said Dr Badcock had accepted that Kibuuka was depressed, but that his achievement in his personal and professional life did not fit with personality disorder cases he had seen and added that there was no evidence of past mental health problems.

Mr Lickley said the defence’s forensic psychiatrist Dr Jan Vermeulen had accepted Kibuuka was in control of his actions.

He said: “He acted deliberately, he had planned it for some little time. He wasn’t acting impulsively, randomly or in any way chaotically. He was focused and determined to bring about the death of his wife.”

He said anger was not a defence, but in this case an explanation of why he killed his wife.

Nigel Pascoe QC, defending, spoke of the impact of Kibuuka’s past in Uganda, where he claimed he was raped at the age of eight and sexually abused for three years.

He said: “Right at the heart of the case is a damaged, abnormal personality formed years ago and it’s dormant and it re-emerges when there’s a divorce.”

He argued it was extraordinary for Kibuuka to turn to a witch doctor with his problems in 2009 after living such a long time in England and suggested this gave an indication of the disintegration of the defendant’s mind.

Kibuuka denies murdering his wife at their home in Richville Road, Shirley, and three counts of drugging their children to enable him to cause her serious harm in November last year.

Proceeding