How my brother's loyalty to his wife cost him his life

Loyal ... Andrew refused to believe wife Sarah was a cheat

PROTECTIVE Sally Owens begged her younger brother to listen when she told him about his wife’s cheating – but he refused to believe her.
That loyalty was to cost Andrew Jackson his life.
He was beaten to death by one of wife Sarah’s secret lovers — after they caught her flirting with a THIRD man.
Sally, 47, told The Sun: “If only Andrew had listened to me he’d still be with us.”
Sarah Jackson, 38, watched as her muscular toyboy, Cohnor Coleman, 24, punched Andrew “like a cage-fighter” in a street in the market town of Richmond, North Yorks.
As her husband lay unconscious and bleeding, she walked away arm-in-arm with Coleman, whose knuckles were dripping with blood.

Toyboy ... killer Cohnor Coleman

Both were later arrested. Coleman was charged with Andrew’s murder, Sarah was released without charge.
Meanwhile Andrew, a lorry driver and former pro golfer, lay in a coma in hospital with head injuries.
Sally and their 69-year-old mother, Rosemary Bennett, kept a vigil at his bedside but, two days later, had to make the heartbreaking decision to turn off his life support machine.

Mum-of-four Sally says: “If Andrew had listened to me when I first warned him about Sarah cheating on him, he would have been free of her and still with us now.
“But he loved her and couldn’t see any bad in her. Andrew thought he had met his ideal woman. What he had actually met was someone who was so clever she successfully lied to him time and time again.
“The truth about Sarah has finally come out now for everyone to see. But it’s too late for Andrew and all of us who loved him.”
Divorcee Andrew, 43, a former pro at Richmond Golf Club, North Yorks, who spent two years on the professional circuit, met Sarah online in 2006 and was soon smitten.

Cheat ... Sarah

Within weeks he was making plans for the accounts administrator and her sons — Bradley, then six, and two-year-old Cameron — to move from Wakefield, West Yorks, to live with him in Colburn, North Yorks.
Sally says: “At first I was happy for Andrew that he’d met someone. But it all happened far too quickly for my liking, especially with children involved.
“I first met Sarah at my mum’s 60th birthday celebration, soon after she and Andrew met.
“She asked her kids to call me ‘Aunty Sally’ and mum ‘Grandma Rosie’. I found that strange and felt as though she couldn’t wait to get her claws into Andrew.”

After Sarah and the boys moved to be with Andrew they bought a house in the nearby village of Brough with St Giles. They married in 2010.
One of their new neighbours was Caroline Dryden, whose son Coleman, then 15, would babysit Sarah’s children. At the same time he developed a crush on Sarah that, years later, developed into a sexual relationship.
Sally says: “I first heard rumours of Sarah’s cheating two years before she and Andrew got married. I was out with Lisa Hepworth — Andrew’s first wife who is still my friend — and we walked into a bar where two men were playing pool. I clearly heard one of them say that Sarah was really good in bed.
“They then saw me and Lisa standing nearby and went quiet. They knew who we were and realised they had given the game away. Lisa said she had seen Sarah with the same man a couple of weeks earlier.
“I knew I had to tell Andrew and the next time I saw him, I did.
“He brushed it off, saying people wanted to make trouble for them.”
Then Sally heard rumours that Sarah had been having an affair with another man she had met in a local pub. Again she told Andrew, who once more refused to discuss the possibility his wife was cheating.

Heartbreak ... Andrew's grieving sister Sally with their mum Rosemary

Sally says: “She was taking the mickey out of Andrew. The town was full of rumours about her and it seemed he was the only one who didn’t believe them.
“His friends were also warning him she was cheating. Andrew was a decent, trusting, loving man and he wanted his relationship to work.”
Sarah had been seeing Coleman for three weeks when, on April 25, her flirting with another man in front of both her lover and her husband sparked that fatal fight.
Coleman flew into a rage and was thrown out the Cavern club in Richmond. Sarah followed him and Andrew followed both of them, out of concern for Sarah.
In the street Coleman hit him with a blow so hard it knocked him out cold.
As Andrew lay unconscious, Coleman rained at least five punches into his face.
He later told Teesside Crown Court that as they left Andrew dying in the street, Sarah told him she loved him.
Sally says: “It was the middle of the night when I got a phone call from my mum telling me that Andrew had been attacked and was seriously ill.
“He was being kept alive by a ventilator and I knew in my heart that he wasn’t going to recover. His face was swollen and beaten black and blue. We stayed with Andrew, held his hand, did his hair for him and told him we loved him. But we knew we were losing him.
“Sarah was released from police custody and asked to come to the hospital with her boys. As a family we refused — we didn’t want her anywhere near him because, to us, she was the one who had put him there.”
Andrew died on April 27. Cleared of blame by the police, Sarah headed the mourners at his funeral.

Sally says: “We didn’t go near her at the funeral — no one did. She and her close family sat on the left on the church in the first two pews.
“There were rows empty behind her while our side was packed. People were sitting in deckchairs at the back rather than sit near to her, that’s how strongly people felt.” Last month Coleman was jailed for six years and nine months after admitting manslaughter. He was cleared of murder.
In the witness box Sarah admitted having a sexual fling with Coleman and to another affair the previous year.
Passing sentence, the judge said Sarah should not blame herself for her husband’s death.
But Sally says: “Cohnor Coleman struck the blows that killed Andrew, but it was Sarah’s actions that ultimately led to my brother’s death.”


The Sun