An ex-airline pilot has been jailed for life in Britain for murdering his wife by deliberately crashing his car after disabling her airbag. Iain Lawrence, 53, was found guilty of murdering his wife Sally by a jury after a three-week trial at Leicester Crown Court.

High Court judge Mr. Justice Leggatt told Lawrence he would serve a minimum term of 24 years.

Prosecutors said Lawrence adopted the brace position as the car crashed into a tree as Mrs. Lawrence, who was not wearing a seat-belt, died almost instantly.

People inside the court cheered and shouted "yes" as the verdict was read out. Lawrence had denied deliberately driving his car into a tree to murder his 47-year-old wife and claimed it was an accident.

But the jury of 6 men and 6 women took just over eight hours to convict him of murder by a majority verdict of 11-1.

Unclipped his wife's seatbelt

The court heard that Lawrence disabled the passenger airbag of his red Peugeot before the crash in Gartree Road in Oadby, Leicestershire, on October 6th last year and, in the moments before the car struck the tree, unclipped his wife's seatbelt.

Sentencing Lawrence, Mr. Justice Leggatt said: "The way in which you killed Sally was both brutal and carefully planned. You must have singled out the spot on the Gartree Road - a road you knew well - as a place that suited your purpose: a large tree with clear ground in front of it on a gentle bend in the road."

He said Lawrence disabled the passenger airbag "in preparation" for what he planned to do.

Mr Justice Leggatt continued "How you got Sally into your car, and whether by trickery or force, no-one but you can know. I suspect it was a combination of the two. However you achieved it, she cannot have imagined what you were planning to do next.

"It was not chance but the result of your careful and cold-blooded planning that you came away from the collision with a few bruises while Sally died of catastrophic injuries."