A Woman Scorned...and Then Jailed

(Posted on 06/10/11)

Don't underestimate the power - and degree of anger - a woman has. Mandy Fleming received her sentence in a Kent court on Thursday after she was convicted of causing damage to her estranged husband's yacht. Her 18 month sentence should equate to a total amount of jail time of half that, less the ten months she's already served awaiting sentencing.

After arriving to her husband's yacht for a romantic tryst with another husband and wife, Fleming noticed some paperwork that included payments for various repairs to the yacht. Already upset that her husband pleaded poverty in their ongoing divorce battle, Fleming then left to retrieve a drill, which she promptly used to drill three holes in the vessel. Before unboarding the yacht, she turned on the gas cooker.

The berthing master arrived the next morning to see the slowly sinking vessel. He boarded it to get into the living quarters and that's when he noticed the strong gas odors. He said in court, "I had a radio on me and I knew the smallest spark would trigger off an explosion." Once he realized that, he immediately evacuated the area.

The damage was substantial - estimated at around £40,000.

Interestingly, Fleming had barely escaped prosecution after she was accused of plotting with the one half of the couple involved in the tryst for plotting to kill her husband. David Brown and his wife were the ones who had showed up for an evening spent with Fleming and he was later charged with Fleming after it came to light they had planned to kill her husband. According to her solicitor, the primary witness in that case was discredited, therefore, the charges were dropped.

You know the old saying: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Fleming definitely gives new meaning to that addage.