Ellen Carole Kemp

Ellen Kemp was killed by her husband whilst she slept on the night of 8 August 1985 at their home in Abbots Walk, Caterham.

Her husband said that he killed her whilst having a nightmare about killing Japanese soldiers.

Psychiatrists described the attack as a 'Night Terror'.

They had been married for 11 years and had three children.

He was tried for her murder at the Old Bailey but acquitted in January 1987. He had spent a year on remand.

Her husband was branded the 'Dream Killer'.

He told the court that he had strangled her because he believed she had been a Japanese soldier trying to kill him in a violent nightmare.

He later said:

When he later described the nightmare, he said:

He said that after that he panicked and didn't know what to do, stating that he couldn't just ring up the police and tell them that he had just killed his wife as he didn't think they would believe it if he told them what had happened. He said then that he pulled Ellen Kemp out of bed and dragged her body down the stairs, adding that he was frightened and was acting out of blind terror.

He said that at that moment he wanted more than anything for her to be alive, but she wasn't and that he felt that he had to disguise how she died.

He said that it was about 3am that she died and that about 3.30am he knocked on his neighbours door and they called an ambulance and that within minutes the police arrived. He noted that it was obvious that they thought he had murdered her and that they hadn't even tried to disguise that.

He said that they then claimed that he had murdered Ellen Kemp because she had denied him sex after the cot death of their daughter in January 1984. However, he denied that and that forensic tests showed that they had had sex the night before he killed her, and added that they had had a very active sex-life.

He said that he had been kept on remand in Brixton for ten months and that during that time he had been moved 29 times in an effort to break his will. He said that when his children visited him, they were told that Brixton prison was a magic castle in an effort to explain all the locks and doors.

He said that things got so bad at one point that he attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself with a grey prison jumper but that his neck slipped out and he was discovered by one of the warders unconscious on the floor.

He said that following his acquittal, that Ellen Kemp's family refused to see him as they all thought that he had murdered her. He said:

He added that he knew that the matter would jeopardise any future relationships, and said:

However, he married again in December 1988 after meeting a woman in a supermarket.

His knew wife said:

She added that the only time she had been concerned was the first time they slept together, saying:

It was noted at the trial that Ellen Kemp's husband had said that the dream had been a recurring one but that the Japanese soldiers had never caught him before. However, following his marriage he said that he had never had the dream since.

Women's rights campaigners later attacked the verdict, stating that it was: