WARNING DISTRESSING CONTENT: Kimberley Milne endured 18 months of torment at the hands of her violent and manipluative husband, Lee Milne. Today, he has been jailed for killing his wife in a landmark case
Brave Kimberley Milne spent the last months of her life trying to free herself from her abusive husband’s clutches, but each time he would claw his way back in to terrorise her.
The 28-year-old, loved by friends and family, had a bright future ahead of her before her spark was cruelly stamped out by a man who coerced her into a marriage she never wanted. Soon after he pressured her to move in, the living nightmare began.
Lee Milne, 40, spent 18 months tormenting his wife in a sick campaign of terror. The coercive control – a psychological form of abuse where a perpetrator erodes a victims’ sense of self with manipulation, surveillance and humiliation – was unbearable for Kimberly, who already struggled with her mental health.
READ MORE: Domestic abuser Lee Milne jailed for eight years after wife’s tragic bridge jump
Milne controlled her finances, attempted to cut contact from loved ones and called her offensive names. It’s a sickening tactic abusers use to reduce a victim to a shell of themselves in order to maintain their hold over them.
Isolated and vulnerable, Kimberley also suffered physical attacks and lived in constant fear of retaliation. She told the police that Milne spat on her and strangled her. He also punched her in the ribs while she begged him to stop.
Eventually, the abuse became too much to bear. On 27 July 2023, Kimberley died after being struck by vehicles when she jumped from a motorway bridge on to the A90 in Dundee. Milne was convicted of killing her in the first case of its kind in Scotland. Today, he has been jailed for eight years. Here, we look at Kimberly’s brave account of her devastating struggle before her death, and the agony of her final hours…
The insidious abuse
The court heard that on one occasion in 2022, Milne went through Kimberley’s phone and lashed out. “Lee and I were in his home and he went through my phone,” she told police. “He saw messages from other men before we were together. He got angry and started to shout and swear at me.”
“Immediately after this he put both hands around my neck and pinned me against the kitchen wall. After a while he swapped his hands, pressed his right forearm against my neck. A few seconds passed and he let go and started crying, saying how sorry he was.”
In another incident, in late 2022, she told officers: “Lee repeatedly punched my ribs and I was begging him not to hurt me but he was not listening. I felt unsafe so I decided not to leave that night. I slept with a knife under my pillow as I was so frightened of him.”
Police constable Owen McLaughlin, who spoke to Kimberley on 8 May 2023, also told the court that she told him Milne isolated her from friends and put her phone in water.
On one occasion in November 2022, Milne got angry when she asked to be taken home and struck her, causing her to fall and hit her head on a wall, knocking her unconscious.
On an occasion in May the following year, Milne seized her by the throat when she asked to be taken home, and choked her and shouted at her, causing her to run to another room and barricade herself in with a table. After forcing himself in he repeatedly punched and bit her, and threatened to hit her with a mirror that he then threw against a wall.
The court also heard that during another incident, Milne pulled Kimberley to the ground by her hair, later apologising and claiming he was “not that type of guy”.
Kimberley’s brave account to police officers wasn’t the only time she sought help. She also told a doctor that she was manipulated and tricked into marrying Milne, and had been dealing with domestic abuse for two years.
At trial, prosecutors read out medical notes February 2023, just five months before Kimberley’s death. The record said: “Describes husband as manipulative and tried to make her feel she is losing her mind.” Another noted that the abuse included “physical and mental” deterioration.
In another entry from May 2023, jurors heard that Kimberley “states [she] never believed in marriage ad [sic] feels tricked into agreeing to same. It also said: “Reporting husband as manipulative and a bully.”
Kimberley
In the hours leading up to his wife’s death, Milne had acted in an aggressive and intimidating manner towards her. This included driving erratically when she was in a car with him, shouting and seizing hold of her, which put her in a significant state of fear, distress and alarm, the court heard.
A witness told the court that she saw a man and woman appearing to have an row outside on the night Kimberley died. Daisy White, 25, thought it was a “father-daughter situation” at first. The witness went shopping before spotting the pair again outside a flooring shop at the Kingsway Retail Park in Dundee.
The witness said this time the man was “trapping” the woman against the wall. Asked what the woman was doing, White told jurors: “Cowering, scared. She did not really do much. There was not much she could do. It did not look like [she was responding to the man] – she seemed too frightened.”
White said she had been “concerned” for the woman and, asked why, she responded: “It was a man making a young woman scared. It is going to be alarm bells.”
That evening, Kimberley died after being struck by a lorry when she took her own life by jumping onto the motorway.
Kimberley’s distraught mother, Lynne Bruce, told police how her daughter’s killer woke her up the next morning, telling her that she had “gone”. Bruce said she was told Kimberly had crashed Milne’s car before he followed her on foot to a bridge.
In a statement read out in court, the 54-year-old is said to have explained: “I did not know what he was on about. He came in the house. He said something along the lines of Kim had pulled the steering wheel and crashed the car.
“He then said Kim had gone up to the bridge and he had chased her. He tried to grab her hands and she looked up at him, shook her head before jumping off. He then said he lay beside her.”
The mother said she was “devastated” when Milne told her what happened. Bruce also told jurors that her daughter had been acting “erratically” on the day of her death, and recalled seeing injuries on Kimberley that, she was told, Milne was responsible for.
Landmark sentencing
Milne had denied culpable homicide and a separate charge of domestic abuse but was found guilty at Glasgow’s High Court in March. It’s the first case of its kind in Scotland. In England there has only ever been one conviction, after stalker Nicholas Allen pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of his former partner Justene Reece in 2017.
Professor Jane Monkton Smith, an internationally renowned expert in homicide, coercive control and stalking, told the Mirror: “Coercive control usually either causes the mental health vulnerability or exacerbates it. We cannot separate the coercive control from the suicide.“It traps people in a situation where they cannot escape the person who is controlling them. And for some people, who try to escape, they can come to feel that there is no way out. This person is going to be abusing them for the rest of their life. They’ve tried the police, they’ve tried mental health help, they’ve tried domestic abuse services, they’ve tried going to their GP. Nothing gets rid of this person. And it’s the entrapment.”
Reacting to today’s sentencing, Jess Denniff, Head of SafeLives Scotland, also told us: “This is the first case of its kind in Scotland, and it should be a turning point. Kimberley Milne’s death shows the devastating reality of coercive control. It is a sustained pattern of intimidation, isolation, degradation and fear that can utterly devastate someone’s mental health. What Kimberly suffered was profound torment, and this case makes clear that abuse of this kind can be fatal.
“With the Scottish election approaching, there is a huge opportunity for the next Government to act. We need a step change in how coercive control is understood across policing, health, social care and the justice system, and in how suspected suicides after domestic abuse are recognised and investigated. This case must mark the moment Scotland stops underestimating the impact of coercive control, holds perpetrators to account, and makes sure survivors get the joined-up support they need sooner.”
Meanwhile, following Milne’s conviction, Detective Chief Inspector Craig Kelly said: “Our thoughts are with Kimberley’s family and friends following this verdict. They have dealt with her tragic loss with great dignity and hopefully this outcome will provide a degree of closure.
“Our investigation found that his behaviour in the time leading up to Kimberley’s death was truly shocking and placed his partner in such fear that she took a course of action to get away from him which led to her death. She was very clearly terrified of him on that night. It is a tragedy that she lost her life as a consequence.
“Our investigation also uncovered a series of domestic offences against Kimberly over an extended period of time, exposing him as a cruel, manipulative and violent man.
“Our officers are determined to ensure women and girls live free from violence and abuse. We are relentless in our focus on tackling domestic abuse. It will not be tolerated, and perpetrators will be held accountable.”
For confidential support, call the 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Freephone Helpline on 0808 2000 247 or visit womensaid.co.uk.
If you or your family have lost a friend or family member through fatal domestic abuse, AAFDA (Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse) can offer specialist and expert support and advocacy. For more info visit www.aafda.org.uk
For mental health support, contact the Samaritans on 116 123, email them at [email protected] or visit samaritans.org to find your nearest branch.
