A man who was cleared of murdering his estranged wife in 2017 has now been found guilty.

Robert Rhodes, 52, from Withleigh, Devon, has been convicted of the murder of his wife Dawn on June 2 2016 following a retrial. Rhodes was acquitted in May 2017 after the jury believed his account that he had acted in self-defence.

In November 2021, Rhodes' child - who cannot be named - told their therapist that their father had planned Dawn’s murder and had manipulated them into being involved in it, which Rhodes described as “our plan”, and then made them lie about how their mother had died.

Following an application to the Court of Appeal in November 2024, the acquittal was quashed, and permission was granted for a retrial for the offence of murder.

Rhodes was also found guilty of child cruelty by inflicting a wound to a child under 10 (who cannot be named for legal reasons), in an attempt to cover up this crime; guilty of perverting the course of justice by causing injuries to himself and the child, and by manipulating the child to cause them to injure him in an attempt to cover up this crime; and guilty of perjury at the Central Criminal Court in London in 2017 and perjury at the family court in 2018 for falsely giving evidence that he knew was untrue.

The court heard the marriage between Dawn and Rhodes had been in difficulty, and he had filed for divorce. At 7.34pm on June 2, the child made a 999 call to police, during which Rhodes said that his wife had attacked him and their child with a knife.

When police attended, they found Dawn lying on the kitchen floor. Her throat had been cut, to the extent it had severed all the structures in her neck. Rhodes told police Dawn had hit him twice on the back of the head. The child showed officers a deep laceration to their arm which they said had been caused by their mother.

Rhodes was arrested for murder that evening. During his police interview, he said he and Dawn had been arguing in the kitchen when she picked up a knife and swung it towards the child, at which point he told the child to go upstairs.

He said he managed to get hold of the knife from Dawn and swung at her, making contact with her neck, before he ran upstairs and called police. When the child was interviewed, they gave an account consistent with the one Rhodes had given.

After coming forward in November 2021, the child was interviewed and described how their father had manipulated them into helping Rhodes get rid of their mother.

The child also told police that during supervised contact with Rhodes in 2016 and 2017 (while he was on bail after being charged with Dawn’s murder), he had told them they had “got some things wrong” and continued to give them instructions to stick to the plan.

Rhodes continued to manipulate and groom the child, even going as far as to hide a phone at his mother’s house when the child visited, on which he would leave messages reminding them about the agreement they had made to get rid of Dawn.

Libby Clark from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “The new evidence that came from the child witness was profoundly shocking and showed just how much careful planning Robert Rhodes had put into murdering his wife.

“He exploited a young child before the murder, explaining his plan to cover up the truth and make it appear as if Dawn had attacked him, so that he could claim that he acted in self-defence. This included Rhodes inflicting injuries on the young child’s arm.

“He continued with his web of lies over the intervening years. It is thanks to the immense bravery of the child in coming forward to explain exactly what happened that night that Robert Rhodes has finally been brought to justice for the murder of Dawn, something he mistakenly thought he could get away with."