A former Olympic athlete told his wife ‘you deserve this, you brought this upon yourself’ as he allegedly suffocated her with a pillow, a jury has heard.
Curtis Robb, 54, is said to have carried out the ‘unprovoked attack’ on Sarah Robb following a row during a family holiday in April 2023.
Months later, Ms Robb went to the police as she told them she feared she was ‘going to end up dead’ if she stayed in the relationship.
Robb, an orthopaedic surgeon who competed for Great Britain in the 800m at the 1992 and 1996 Games, is on trial at Chester Crown Court following allegations he was controlling and coercive in the marriage between December 2015 and August 2023 – claims he denies.
The prosecution said the couple appeared to be ‘happy and successful’, but Robb had a ‘dark side’ and was physically violent and cruel to his wife.
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In her police interview, Ms Robb described how she texted her husband not to wake her up when he returned to their room in the Lake District.
Instead, she said, he walked in with his phone in his hand and cleaned his teeth with an electric toothbrush.
She told officers: ‘I said, “I can’t believe you have done that, that’s awful.” He looked at me with “that face.” He put the toothbrush and phone down. I was lying on the bed, and he did like these karate kicks, three or four times.
‘He pulled the pillow out from under my head and put it over my face. I can’t remember for how long. I started to feel I couldn’t breathe.
‘He threw the pillow onto the bed and then got everything from the bedside table and threw it to my face – my phone, my book, my notebook, my eyemask. I couldn’t move; I froze. I have never retaliated.’
Ms Robb also alleged to police that Robb punched her ‘four or five times’ using his ‘full-on strength’.
At this point her ex-husband allegedly told Ms Robb: ‘You deserve this, you brought it upon yourself, you never know when to leave it.’
The prosecutor said Robb was also interviewed by the police and denied he had ever been controlling or coercive towards her.
He said: ‘He said she was the controlling one. He accepted that during the Easter holiday in 2023, there had been an argument. He said he had thrown a pillow at Sarah but denied putting it over her face and suffocating her.’
Ms Robb said the incident, which she described as a ‘completely unprovoked, brutal attack’, gave her ‘clarity’.
She told detectives: ‘Over the years, he would say, “You are mentally unstable, you are autistic, you need to see a psychiatrist”. I used to believe it. I don’t any more.
‘I would always say “You want a doormat as a wife and I am not a doormat,” but looking back, I probably was.’
Robb, of Northwich, Cheshire, denies controlling and coercive behaviour.
He has also pleaded not guilty to suffocation.
The trial continues.
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