Joanna Simpson: Family fear for lives as they call for ‘narcissistic’ hammer killer to be kept behind bars

Exclusive: Mother of two was battered to death and buried in a pre-dug grave – now her family fears for their safety if her killer is released

Joanna Simpson’s family fear for their safety if her killer is released (Family handout/Independent)

In a matter of weeks, Joanna Simpson’s family fear they could come face-to-face with the killer who battered her to death and buried her in a pre-dug grave.

Her controlling husband Robert Brown is set to be automatically released, 13 years after he bludgeoned the mother of his two children to death, striking her 14 times with a hammer amid a bitter divorce battle as their children cowered in the playroom.

Afterwards, he bundled Joanna’s body into the car with the children and dropped them at his girlfriend’s house, before dumping her body in a grave at Windsor Great Park lined with a garden box.

Alongside his estranged wife’s body, police found various “kill kit” paraphernalia, including overalls and shoe covers, the family told the Independent.

At trial, the charming former British Airways captain was cleared of murder, after he told the court he was suffering from an adjustment disorder, and instead admitted to the lesser charge of manslaughter by diminished responsibility. Joanna’s family said it was one the “greatest miscarriages of justice of the past ten years”.

Brown was sentenced to 24 years for manslaughter and a further two years for an offence of obstructing a coroner in the execution of his duty.

This means he is eligible for automatic release from 6 November, halfway through his 26-year term, without a parole board assessing if he’s a risk to the public.

Former BA captain Robert Brown was jailed for manslaughter for bludgeoning Joanna Simpson to death with a hammer (PA)

Joanna’s terrified family has told the Independent they fear for their safety and have appealed to justice secretary Alex Chalk to use new discretionary powers to keep him behind bars.

Joanna’s best friend, Hetti Barkworth-Nanton, chair at the domestic abuse charity Refuge, said: “I don’t believe he’s going to stop. I would not be remotely surprised if his plan was to kill one of us and then commit suicide to achieve notoriety.”

Joanna’s mum Diana Parkes added: “He’s a total threat to society, this man.

“I have said in the past that I hope he kills me, I am 84, I have had my life, and then everybody else will be safe. I worry for my friends and for my son and his family.”

Under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, Mr Chalk can refer automatic release cases to the Parole Board where there are reasonable grounds that the prisoner would “pose a significant risk to members of the public of serious harm”.

The family, which has launched a campaign to halt his release, submitted a dossier of evidence to the justice secretary earlier this year and is “praying he does the right thing”.

“I am sure Alex Chalk will be looking at it very, very carefully. I just pray that he realises the huge miscarriage of justice that happened,” said Diana, 84, who says the judge saw “straight through” Brown and imposed the “longest sentence he possibly could” for manslaughter.

Rules were changed in 2020 to ensure those jailed for seven years or longer for serious crimes must serve at least two-thirds of their sentence before automatic release, but it has not been applied retrospectively.

Joanna Simpson and her mum Diana Parkes (Family handout/Independent)

Diana, who took in her daughter’s children Alex, then 10, and nine-year-old Katie, and raised them at her home on the Isle of Man, added: “When I got home [from the trial] I couldn’t tell the children that he could be out in 13 years, I just told them he would be in jail for 26 years. How can 26 years possibly be 13?

“Of course, it has changed now, now he would have to serve two-thirds of his sentence and wouldn’t be allowed out until 2027.”

The family has ramped up security at their homes as they face an agonising wait for Mr Chalk’s decision and they prepare to mark the thirteenth anniversary of Jo’s death on Halloween in 2010.

Hetti added: “It is a really difficult time. This time of year is always hard. I think of what happened during the month those years 13 years ago – he was finalising his preparations with the grave. Those are the sorts of things that come into my head.

“The build-up to the 31 October is ghastly, just ghastly. Knowing that in one month he will be out on the week commencing 6 [November], knowing that we are talking to probation about exclusion zones and how they are going to try to protect us from this man who doesn’t obey rules, who is a narcissist and wants to win at all costs and has never seen that he is responsible for what happened.”

The attack came a week before a final High Court hearing which would have seen Brown lose his claim over a disputed family home at Tun Cottage in Ascot, Berkshire, following a three-year divorce battle.

Joanna Simpson and her best friend Hetti Barkworth-Nanton, now chair of Refuge (Family handout/Independent)

At the time of the trial, little was understood about the coercive and controlling abuse that Brown is said to have subjected Jo to during their marriage. In 2021, it was made a criminal offence.

“He knew that he wasn’t going to win … so there was no way he was going to let it get to court,” added Hetti, who struggled with complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for seven years in the aftermath of her death and the subsequent trial.

Brown attacked the “beautiful” and “clever” former marketing manager with a hammer he had snuck into her home in one of their children’s homework bags.

“She was going to be free in a week. We spoke in the hour before she was killed and we talked about how it was going to be great if she gets past this hearing and planning her future – a future that he wouldn’t let happen,” Hetti told the Independent.

She added: “We are really fearful, because this is a man who didn’t just kill Jo, he had prepared it months before.

“When Jo was found in the grave, she was found with a whole heap of paraphernalia which the police called a murder kit. White plastic overalls and blue plastic shoe covers.

“When he was in court at the murder trial he told them that his plan was to report to work and fly a jumbo jet to Lagos and crash the plane in order to make a statement, because he said suicide is better than prison.”

Paying tribute to Jo, who ran a successful five-star bed and breakfast from her home, Diana said: “Every mother thinks their daughter is the best. But she was the best and everybody loved her except her husband. She was beautiful, glamorous, clever. We all turned to her for advice.”

Despite her grief, she believes raising Jo’s children, now 22 and 23 and thriving in successful jobs, has been her “salvation”

“The children have just been magnificent, they are fantastic,” she told the Independent. “They have both been to uni and they have now got good jobs. I am so proud of them. In fact, they have been my salvation. Because they are part of Jo and I have had the privilege of bringing them up.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice said Ms Simpson was brutally killed in a “cowardly, senseless attack” and Mr Chalk had vowed to give the case his closest and personal attention.