A woman who plotted with her secret lover to murder her husband so they could start a new life together has been jailed for 19 years.

Michelle Mills, 46, and Geraint Berry, 47, planned to kill Christopher Mills so they could continue their affair, and Berry recruited Steven Thomas, also 47, to help carry out their attack on 20 September last year.

Berry and Thomas attacked Christopher Mills at a static caravan he shared with his wife. They were masked, bore imitation handguns and were carrying gas masks, pliers and cable ties in a rucksack.

Their victim was badly injured, but he managed to fight off his attackers and the pair fled, while his wife called 999 shortly after 11.30pm to report her husband had suffered a head injury but that she did not know who the masked attackers were.

The trial heard that Berry, an ex-marine, had been in a secret relationship with Mills for about three months before the assault and shared his fantasies with her about killing her husband.

At Swansea crown court, Mr Justice Nicklin KC jailed Michelle Mills, of Llangennech, Llanelli, and Berry, of Clydach, Swansea, for 19 years each for conspiracy to murder.

Mills was also given an 18-month sentence to run concurrently for perverting the course of justice, while Berry was given the same sentence for possession of an imitation firearm, a charge he had previously admitted.

Thomas, of Blaengwynfi, in the Afan Valley, who the judge said had played a “subordinate role” to Berry, was given a 12-month sentence for possessing an imitation firearm, which he too had previously admitted.

Sentencing Berry, Nicklin said: “Together with Michelle Mills you planned to kill Christopher Mills.

“You devised the plan and led its execution. You recruited Steven Thomas to assist you and while intoxicated, you equipped yourself with items that demonstrated your intention to kill Mr Mills and make it appear to be a suicide.

“However incompetent the plan was and how unlikely it was to be achieved, your intention was to kill.”

He said text messages between Berry and Michelle Mills, which Mills deleted but Berry did not, were the “chilling reality” of the plan, which had been “thwarted by the remarkable fortitude and courage of Mr Mills, who fought you and your accomplice off”.

Addressing Mills, the judge said she had deleted the text messages because she knew very well that they were incriminating. “Geraint Berry may have been largely responsible for devising the method but you encouraged him to execute the plan,” he said.

“The evidence strongly suggests in the weeks leading up to the incident, you cultivated and exploited Geraint Berry’s animosity towards your husband and encouraged him to find a way to get rid of your husband, not in fantasy but reality.”

Mills and her husband, also ex-forces, married in 2018 and lived together at Maes Ty Gwyn, Llangennech, Swansea, but the attack took place at a static caravan they shared in Cenarth, Carmarthenshire.

Mills was not aware of any problems in his relationship with his wife who was said to have begun an affair with Berry in June 2024.

In victim impact statements read to the court, Mills said he had been unable to come to terms with how “cold and calculated” the plot was and that he was “devastated” that his wife had been having an affair.

He described how he was a “changed person” since the attack, was anxious and on edge, cannot trust people and has become withdrawn.