Ex-wife jailed for sinking yacht

[LuckyLady]

Stupid Boat lol

Ex-wife Mandy Fleming jailed for sinking yacht

6 October 2011 Last updated at 12:11 ET


Mandy Fleming, 47, sank the Double Dragon after becoming angry with her ex for spending money on the vessel.

The Old Bailey heard she drilled three holes in the hull and turned on cooker gas taps, turning the £75,000 yacht into a "bomb".

Fleming of Sheerness, Kent, pleaded guilty to endangering life by causing criminal damage in 2004.

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

Fleming had gone to the marina to meet her then lover David Brown and his wife Nemone for a "menage-a-trois" the court heard.

Explosion fears

But she "lost it" after seeing her estranged husband Adam had bought a new television and other items in the boat, when he had told her he did not have any money.

She rang him and berated him for his spending, before returning to the vessel with a drill and drilling three holes.



The next morning, a marina official went aboard to pump out water and noticed the gas taps had been left on.

Prosecutor Mark Gadsden said: "A volatile mixture of propane gas and air had been created and all it would have needed was for someone to turn on an electric light or torch, or respond to a mobile phone or radio, for it to have exploded."

An estimated £40,000 damage had been caused to the yacht.

Fleming wept as she was told she would have to serve half the sentence, less the two-and-a-half months she had initially spent in custody.

She and haulage contractor Mr Fleming have since divorced. They had married two years before the incident in what was Fleming's third marriage.

Oliver Blunt QC, for Fleming, told the judge: "A lot of water has gone under the bridge since that time.

"She has little recollection of the gas being turned on. They had all been drinking and were very much the worse for wear."

Fleming was initially charged with damaging the boat but was later accused, along with Mr Brown and another man, of plotting to kill her husband by hiring a hitman.

But the charges were dropped last month after supergrass Gary Eaton, the chief witness, was discredited.

Earlier this year, his evidence was also excluded from the failed prosecution of three men charged with murdering private detective Daniel Morgan.

[seapower]

My wife does have a sister!!!! Frank

[LuckyLady]

He is the original report on it, I must say its quite comical , there was actually another story that I remember seeing about a similar incident somewhere else. The joys of marriage

Adam Fleming had bought the £90,000 pleasure cruiser so he and his wife Mandy could sail off into the sunset together.
Their marriage started heading for the rocks shortly after their wedding in 2002 and he thought buying a luxury yacht would keep their love afloat. But it did not quite work out like that.

First Mrs Fleming, 45, stormed out and left him, furious at the money spent on the 39ft Princess Flybridge boat.
And then, on the highly inappropriate date of Valentine's Day, 2004, the marital vessel, named the Double Dragon, mysteriously sank to the bottom of Brighton Marina.
Police found two holes drilled through the hull - and Mr Fleming, 39, is suing his now ex-wife for £55,000 in damages, claiming she was responsible.
Mrs Fleming had already appeared in court over the sinking of the craft, but charges of wilfully endangering life and criminal damage were dropped because of lack of evidence.

And she indignantly denied sabotaging her husband's floating pride and joy.

Mr Fleming however remains determined to pursue his ex-wife through the courts - even though he has subsequently repaired and sold the ill-fated Double Dragon.
Mrs Fleming, of Carshalton in Surrey, accepted she had a temper, was enraged by her husband's spending on the yacht, and that she had been on the Double Dragon hours before it sank. But she denied having anything to do with it.

Mrs Fleming said: "I'd been virtually tricked into getting married in the first place. We'd been together for 11 years when he suggested going away to Turtle Bay Beach in Florida in 2002 to sort our problems.

"Before I knew it I found all his family were there, and I was being told to get a wedding dress.

"I deliberately bought a black one to show I didn't really want to do it. You can see me crying in some of the pictures - and they aren't tears of joy."
Mrs Fleming said that when they returned to the marital home, a £250,000 town house in Mitcham, Surrey, their rows increased, as did their money problems.
She claimed she had to work 16 hour days as a painter and decorator to make ends meet, while her husband, who runs his own haulage business. increasingly went out drinking.

Then, in September 2002, came the purchase of the boat.

"He said he wanted to get a boat 'for me' and I thought he meant a little one," said Mrs Fleming. "But he started looking at all these great big things. I told him we couldn't afford it, but he said it was nothing to do with me, and borrowed the money.
"He told everyone it was a 'love gift' for me, but it effectively split us up, although I did used to go down there by myself occasionally, and travel up the coast to Hastings.

"But eventually I got sick of it all, and in September 2003 I left him and we began divorce proceedings.

"I still used to go down to the boat occasionally, although he tried to stop me - and that was where I was on the afternoon of February 13 2004."
Mrs Fleming said she took a male and a female friend on board, and was astonished to find her estranged husband had a new TV and DVD player below decks, along with new designer suits in the wardrobe and a bar stuffed to the brim with drinks.

"I called Adam to ask where he got the money for for all this stuff," she said. "He told me to get off the boat, and not spend the night there as I was planning.

"In the end I didn't stay the night, and went back to Colliers Wood in London, where I was living at the time, taking the keys to the boat with me."
On Valentine's Day morning Mrs Fleming said she was woken by her son Scott, 26, who said to her: "Mum - you've sunk the boat and the police are looking for you."
Mrs Fleming said: "It took a couple of minutes for it to sink in, if you'll pardon the pun. But I had nothing to do with it.
"I co-operated with the police fully, and they told me all the portholes had been left open, and two holes had been drilled in the hull from the inside, one 10mm wide the other 6mm.

"If I was going to drill holes in the bottom of the boat I would have used a 22mm drill, and made three or four holes.

"But why would I sink it when when it was part of our marital assets? In the end last July, I only got £10,000 and spent £6,000 in legal fees.

"Adam got the house and everything - including the boat. And the only other person who had the keys to the boat was him."
Mrs Fleming now lives with new boyfriend David Brown, who left his wife Nemone shortly before they got together.

Mr Fleming is understood to have a new girlfriend.

The High Court is due to rule on the case in coming months.

[Robja]

My wife does have a sister!!!! Frank

Frank,

you might want to check the bottom of the Wild Card before you splash her.