A MURDEROUS husband who beat his wife to the point of death has been found guilty of trying to kill her.

A jury at Lewes Crown Court convicted 70-year-old Derek Tully of attempted murder during a vicious attack with an 18-inch wooden pole on 64-year-old Valerie.

Tully had insisted an intruder broke into their home in Cissbury Gardens, Findon Valley, Worthing, started several different fires in the loft, lounge and hallway which destroyed their home and brutally beat his wife as he slept beside her.

But with the aid of detailed forensic evidence, detectives showed that Tully himself had beaten her repeatedly with a wooden stave.

She was dealt a minimum of seven hard blows to her head, resulting in multiple skull fractures, and was covered in blood when she was found by firefighters on January 5 last year.

She also had injuries to her face, neck, shoulders, upper back, torso and legs.

Tully, who had pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, clasped his sobbing wife's outstretched hand and said loudly "I didn't do it" as he was led down from the dock to the cells.

Mrs Tully has been steadfast in her support for her husband and believed his story that a "shadowy figure" had beaten her savagely and set the house on fire.

Justice

She had told the jury: "I am determined that whoever did this to me - and I can tell you it was not my husband - is brought to justice."

But on the 17th day of his trial the seven men and five women of the jury took less than three hours to decide that Tully himself was responsible.

Mrs Tully, 64, was so badly traumatised by the attack that she has no memory of that night's events.

As the verdict was read out she wept openly, her head in her arms, as she was comforted by her sobbing daughter Robina Lincoln, 40, who had also given evidence supporting her father.

Tully, who had sat upright and immaculately turned out in the dock during the trial, undid his tie and the top buttons of his shirt when the jury foreman read out the guilty verdict.

He slumped in his chair, a persistent twitch at the corner of his mouth the only visible sign of emotion.

PC Chris Saunders, spokesman for Highdown Division, said after the trial: "This has been a very, very difficult case considering that the victim has stood by her attacker.

"It was also difficult because there was no motive. To this day we still can't figure it out."

Tully will be sentenced at Lewes Crown Court on June 14.

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