Ex Wife Jailed Over Boat Sinking

A woman was jailed for 18 months on Thursday for sinking her husband's yacht on Valentine's Day.

Mandy Fleming had gone to the Double Dragon in Brighton Marina for ``menage-a-trios'' with her then lover David Brown and his wife Nemone, the Old Bailey.

But she ``lost it'' after seeing her estranged husband Adam had spent money on a new television and other items for the boat whilst saying he didn't have any money.

She drilled three holes in the hull and turned on cooker gas taps which turned the £75,000 vessel into ``an explosive bomb''.

Fleming of Sheerness, Kent, pleaded guilty to endangering life by causing criminal damage in 2004, when she appeared in court last month.

Old Bailey Judge Richard Hone told her: ``You were a manipulative, angry and troubled individual.''

The couple met in Wales in the mid-1990s and were married on Turtle Bay Beach in Florida in 2002. They were divorced three years later.

Fleming had also been charged with plotting to kill her husband by hiring a hitman to shoot him, but the charge was dropped last month.

The court was told that the allegation had been based on the allegations of supergrass Gary Eaton who had since been proved to be unreliable and a liar.

He had earlier this year been discredited in the failed prosecution of four men accused of murdering private detective Daniel Morgan.

Eaton, 53, a career criminal, offered to give evidence in both cases after signing a supergrass deal.

He admitted being part of the alleged plot to kill Mr Fleming and his sentence was reduced from 27 years to three years in 2008.

But he never gave evidence in either case because both judges said he was capable of making up evidence.