Cheating spouse and lover who plotted to homicide her husband in caravan be taught destiny

Christopher Mills was attacked by two masked men in a caravan at a holiday park in Cenarth, Carmarthenshire – today Michelle Mills and Geraint Berry were jailed for the plot

An unfaithful wife who plotted with her lover to murder her husband and pocket £124,000 in life insurance has been jailed for 19 years. Michelle Mills schemed with former soldier, Geraint Berry to kill Christopher Mills.

Throughout their three-month affair, Mills, 46, hatched various plans to murder her husband, including suffocating him with a pillow, poisoning him with foxgloves in his salad, and slipping anti-freeze into his gravy. However, Mr Mills was ultimately attacked in a caravan at a holiday park in Cenarth, Carmarthenshire.

Two masked assailants wielded imitation firearms, but Mr Mills managed to disarm and fight off the attackers, who subsequently fled, a court heard. Police launched an investigation and arrested Mills, Berry, and a third suspect on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. But he was cleared by the jury, whilst Mills and Berry, 46, were convicted of the charge.

Today the pair were jailed for 19 years at Swansea Crown Court. The court was told the pair hatched their scheme just weeks after Mr Mills’ Help For Heroes £124,000 policy became active.

Berry, a former Royal Marine, began her affair with Mills during summer 2024, with the assault occurring at the end of September that year, reports Wales Online.

Extensive text exchanges presented to the jury revealed Mills, a former charity worker, and Berry discussing their feelings for one another and their wish to be together.

Mills, from Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, and Berry, of Swansea, both denied conspiracy to murder. Mills also denied a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice regarding the statement she provided to police following the caravan incident.

Berry and Thomas had earlier admitted possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear. The judge says that while intoxicated, Berry equipped himself with gasmasks, cable ties fashioned into wrist and ankle restraints, and a fake suicide note, and travelled to the caravan in Cenarth to kill Mr Mills, probably by gassing him and making it look like a suicide.

The judge says however incompetent the plan was, the planning had been “chilling” and he said it was only the “remarkable fortitude and courage” of Mr Mills which stopped it being executed.

While Mills deleted the text messages between her and Berry to try to cover her tracks, Berry had not deleted the messages from his device and those messages showed the “chilling reality” of what happened in the caravan on the night in question, the judge said.

Sentencing Berry, the judge said: “Together with Michelle Mills you planned to kill Christopher Mills. You devised the plan and led its execution. You recruited Steven Thomas to assist you and while intoxicated, you equipped yourself with items that demonstrated your intention to kill Mr Mills and make it appear to be a suicide.

“However incompetent the plan was and how unlikely it was to be achieved, your intention was to kill.”

He said text messages between Berry and Mills, which Mills deleted but Berry did not, were the “chilling reality” of the plan, which had been “thwarted by the remarkable fortitude and courage of Mr Mills, who fought you and your accomplice off”.

Addressing Mills, the judge said she deleted the text messages because she knew “very well” they were incriminating.

He said: “Geraint Berry may have been largely responsible for devising the method but you encouraged him to execute the plan.

“The evidence strongly suggests in the weeks leading up to the incident, you cultivated and exploited Geraint Berry’s animosity towards your husband and encouraged him to find a way to get rid of your husband, not in fantasy but reality.”

Georgia Jones from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “This was a devious, callous and murderous plot devised by a wife and her lover to kill her husband.

“The evidence painted a clear picture, showing that the two defendants had been discussing different ways of killing Mr Mills over the weeks leading up to the attack.

“However, their plans fell apart when Mr Mills managed to bravely fight off his attackers.

“We would like to thank Mr Mills, and the other witnesses, for their support throughout this case, enabling us to bring these offenders to justice.”