The village of Old Woking in Surrey lies about 35 miles south-west of central London and just over a mile southeast from the modern town centre of Woking, which many of you will be perhaps more familiar with. It is of course known and loved for…hmmm, anyway, let’s move on.
The village contains two lovely parks – Woking Park and Gresham Mill – and a nature reserve, and with no dual carriageways or motorways is a peaceful and leafy area of the south-east of Britain. In 1994, some glitzy new offices were opened in Westminster Court, Old Woking. These were the gynaecology offices of 47 year old Dr Jeremy Wright. Jeremy was married to 46 year old Julia, and the couple shared four children together at their home in Hook Heath Avenue in Woking. The area is an attractive and rather exclusive one, with large properties dispersed along a beautiful tree lined road. Jeremy’s marital life was a fairly eventful one at this time – he had divorced his first wife but then remarried her a few years later. He once joked with a former neighbour that he was the ‘only man who managed to get rid of his first wife, divorced her and then fell in love with her and remarried her!’ Despite the remarriage though, unsurprisingly things still did not end well. During the marriage, Jeremy had embarked on an affair with his wife when we pick up the story, Julia, and this progressed ultimately, to them marrying in 1979 following the second divorce from Jeremy’s first wife. Some of us do make life rather complicated sometimes don’t we.
But Jeremy and Julia appeared very well suited with medicine a huge passion for both, and at the very core of their lives. Julia had studied medicine at Aberdeen University some years earlier, finally qualifying in 1972. Medical life was in her blood with Julia being the daughter of an eminent Aberdeen doctor, Lawson Davidson, who had been a Consultant Anaesthetist before his death in 1989. Despite her innate love of the profession, Julia had made the decision to put her medical career on hold in order to raise their four children, who, in 1994 were 14, 12, 8 and 6 years old, with a view to hopefully resuming things again once the children were a bit older. It was a tough decision to make as Julia had been a successful doctor with her own practice, but with children her priorities changed, and she wanted to be a very hands mum with her young family.
Whilst Julia spent most of her time looking after the children, Jeremy was busy with his new offices. As you will well know, the success of any business has very little to do with the figurehead, but the core of dedicated people taking care of things to ensure the smooth running of day to day business. One person entrusted with this responsibility for Jeremy’s gynaecology offices was Fiona Wood, who had become his medical secretary in 1986 and then became the Practice Manager at the Old Woking offices. Forty year old Fiona had been married to a marketing manager – Peter Wood – before they separated after 20 years of marriage. They had two children together, 12 year old Richard and, and Emma who was 15. Fiona was devoted to both children despite them both actually living with their father Peter. Fiona enjoyed her job at the Practice, but spent much of it alone working from a pretty small office, as Jeremy practiced at a number of Surrey hospitals, and was not often at the offices. The gynaecology practice was a very successful one in the local area so Fiona was always kept super busy.
Fiona’s relationship with Jeremy Wright, who was her boss, had began on somewhat of a slow footing, but year upon year this continued to improve. And at some point in 1993 the relationship developed into an affair. It was serious. Jeremy moved out of the family home, leaving Julia with the couple’s four children and what really upset her was that once Jeremy had gone the affair seemed pretty widely known by their friends. Julia took herself off to America for an extended break in order to try and get over things, but when she returned home again, reminders were of course everywhere – and she really struggled with her mental health. Seeing no future, she even unsuccessfully tried to take her own life by overdosing on pills and driving headlong into a garage door. But what happened next, nobody could have foreseen.
On the morning on Wednesday 4 May 1994, Julia was driving to a coffee morning in nearby Byfleet when she happened to spot her estranged husband in a car driving in the opposite direction – with Fiona in the passenger seat and, as she saw through her lens at the time, with a ‘triumphant smile across her face.’ Julia continued along to the coffee morning but having seen the two of them together, the jealousy and sense of betrayal she felt she just couldn’t seem to shake off. She left the coffee morning early after having spent much of her time there sobbing to a friend and confiding in her about how she was feeling. She told her friend that she had just seen them in the car together, and that she was ‘just desperate for him to come home.’
Having left the coffee morning, Julia got straight back into her car where she drove the five miles home. Once here, she picked up a knife from the kitchen, fully intent on vengeance against Fiona Wood – the person she believed to be fully at fault for the situation. She then drove to the gynaecology offices where she hoped that Fiona would be, assuming she would have started work for the day. And Fiona had arrived at the offices for work as usual. She had not been in the building for very long and was in the consulting rooms. As Julia went into the room where Fiona was she didn’t hesitate in going through with her plan and launched a vicious attack upon Fiona. Fiona had no time to react as she was stabbed multiple times in the face and chest area before being left dying in a pool of blood to die.
It was now 09:30 am and a blood soaked Julia Wright drove across to the Nuffield Hospital in Old Woking, where her husband Jeremy was working. I wonder how she was feeling on this short drive. Once she found him in the hospital, she didn’t do what you probably expected. Instead, she simply fell into his arms and confessed to what she had done, saying: ‘Everything is alright now, you can come home. I have killed Fiona. She is a wicked woman who took you away from your family.’
Stunned and scarcely able to believe what he was hearing, Jeremy raised the alarm and police were swiftly despatched to the gynaecology offices. Shortly before 10 am, police broke into the office and found the body of Fiona Wood. Paramedics made attempts to save Fiona’s life, but their efforts were in vain and Fiona lost her life that morning at just 40. It was believed that Fiona had already been dead for at least 40 minutes and her injuries so severe that she had to be identified by dental records.
As is almost always the case, people who knew Fiona on a superficial level as part of their daily lives were so shocked by events. For example, one man who worked in the adjacent office was quoted as saying: ‘It’s a terrible thing to happen. She was a very attractive blonde girl with shoulder length hair. She was liked by everybody in the area, and everybody who knew her. She would always say hello and take time to talk to you.’
It also later transpired that there was a panic button inside the office, but it had at no point been activated. Perhaps Julia – who knew the layout of the office – had prevented Fiona from being able to reach it.
In the days after the murder, Fiona’s friends told how they had predicted that her affair with the wealthy Jeremy could only end in disaster, although of course they could never have envisaged things would have ended quite as they did. One friend said: ‘We told her over and over again not to get involved. They were both married and we knew it was never going to be a smooth road ahead.’ Another friend who had lived close to Fiona’s family home said: ‘I told her it would all end in tears but it was very obvious she had grown very fond of him. None of us bargained for this. It is absolutely tragic. She was such a sweet and good-natured woman.’
Although at the time of her death Fiona was no longer with husband Peter, her murder was of course a very challenging time for him and their two children. Friends and relatives delivered hordes of sympathy cards, shopping and even home cooked meals for the shocked family as they tried to come to terms with their grief. Peter told reporters: ‘It is terrible how she died. Fiona didn’t like publicity or attention but she was vivacious and loved life. We had been married for 20 years and were separated. My wife was devoted to her children and used to see them regularly.’ Speaking of how he broke the horrible news to their children, he said: ‘It was the hardest thing of all telling them. The police came and told me while I was at work this morning – and then I had to go to school, pick up my children and tell them. From what I have heard, my wife died a horrific death.’
In police interviews, Julia made no efforts to conceal her actions, admitting to police that: ‘I hit her, then I hit her, then I hit her, that evil and wicked woman.’ And she was duly charged with the murder of Fiona Wood. The day after the murder Julia appeared at Woking Magistrates Court court to face the charge. Headlines cast in the media focused on how the wife of a top gynaecologist had committed a frenzied act of brutality against a doctors secretary, and the inter connecting love interests provided additional ingredients for a hungry media circus – you can well imagine can’t you.
Julia stood motionless in court, head bowed and did not speak during the five minute hearing. The Magistrates offered her no application for bail and remanded her in custody until 12 May, and confirmed also that reporting restrictions would not be lifted. At that hearing, which lasted just three minutes, she this time spoke – though only in a very soft whisper – to confirm her name and address. For the rest of her hearing she simply stood impassively, looking dazed in the dock. An application was made to remand her in custody at Holloway Prison. Before its closure in 2016, Holloway housed some of Britains most infamous inmates including Myra Hindley and more recently Maxine Carr. Before this though, Holloway was where a whole host of the suffragettes were imprisoned during their vociferous campaigning to allow women the vote.
The prosecuting solicitor, applied for a remand of 28 days which was agreed by the Magistrates, and the case adjourned to June. The magistrates also asserted that they believed it was in Julia’s own interests to be remanded in custody, for her own protection. Julia’s defending solicitor said that she was awaiting a full psychiatric report on Julia’s condition. There is of an course irony in this – the medical expert was now awaiting her own assessment as to her own degree of sanity. Psychiatrists confirmed in their assessments that it was their belief that Julia had been suffering from some form of depressive illness for up to four months before the killing. And this formed the basis of Julia Wright’s plea – she was denying murder on the grounds of diminished responsibility owing to the mental state which she had been left in following her husbands extra marital affair – with Fiona Wood. She had felt pushed beyond her limits and this had subsequently led to her committing the act of, she claimed, manslaughter.
In November 1994 Julia Wright appeared at the Old Bailey. Her mum, also called Julia – which is a new one for me, it is usually the male who for reasons I can’t understand calls their son their name – travelled down from the family home in Aberdeen to be present in court for her daughter. Back home in Aberdeen though, the family had decided to not talk publicly about what had happened. A close friend of the family told reporters that they were living in torment at Julia’s actions and had decided that they simply could not speak about the murder.
The Old Bailey heard from Julia’s defence counsel, Bevan QC, and told about ‘the first drip of poison’ which set in motion the chilling course of events. Julia had answered a phone call where a woman’s voice asked: ‘Is this Mrs Wright speaking?’ When told that it was, the mystery voice said: ‘Don’t worry dear – you will not be Mrs Wright for very much longer – he is leaving you soon.’ If Julia had any thoughts of being able to dismiss this as merely a prank caller, further revelations shortly ensued, confirming her husband’s infidelity. Julia’s agitation and displeasure had grown further after she had found a love letter to her husband, written by Fiona. At this same time she also discovered that the pair had been on an illicit secret trip together to London. This had proven too much for Julia to bare, and these discoveries had prompted another suicide attempt by suffocation by fumes in her car. Whilst recovering in hospital, Julia’s then nine year old daughter told her that Fiona had moved into the family house to ‘help look after the children.’
It was this in particular which had seemingly triggered her descent into such hatred towards Fiona – understandably some may say. The court heard that after the killing Julia had told police: ‘She was muscling in on my children as if nothing had happened. I was beside myself – it was bad enough she had taken my husband, but she wasn’t going to take my children.’ Indeed, whilst describing to police what happened during the attack, when stabbing Fiona, Julia was repeatedly shouting: ‘You will not get my children,’ as she plunged the knife into her victim. It was shortly prior to the attack, when Julia learned that her husband Jeremy was moving out of the family home. She had been in America with her sister to celebrate a family birthday, when Julia received a fax from her husband telling her that he was moving out of the family home and into a rented cottage with Fiona. The revelation – and perhaps the rather impersonal method of the news being passed on to her – meant there was now no going back for Julia. When she returned home the following day he had indeed left the house, and Julia’s QC told the court how she had collapsed to the floor in a flood of tears whilst clutching her husband’s bath robe.
The QC continued, ‘The two pillars of support in her life were the love of her husband Jeremy and her love for her children. In her eyes he could do no wrong. The fatal attack was precipitated by her fear that having taken over her husband, Fiona Wood was about to take over her children as well.’
During the hearing, Julia’s defence counsel told the court that incredibly, a mere six weeks after Fiona’s murder, Jeremy Wright had already begun another relationship with someone else. Six week, wow. You could argue that this highlights just how pointless the murder of Julia was; after all, the apparent obstruction to the Wright’s marriage had been removed, but within days Jeremy Wright was already embroiled with someone new.
The Judge told Julia Wright that he recognised she had become mentally ill through the disintegration of her marriage, but could not ignore the fact that she had committed a ‘horrific crime.’ This being the case, he had to ‘mark the fact that a human life has been lost and the rings of tragedy which go out from the stone thrown into this pool will not cease for her children, Mrs Woods’ children, Mr Woods, Mr Wright and whoever else he has found to give him some solace.’ With this the Judge sentenced her to four years imprisonment. I wonder what you make of this sentence, is it the correct one given the circumstances? Or absolutely not?
Fiona’s husband Peter said after the sentencing: ‘Four years seems a short sentence. It was all just a tragic sequence of events which is now in the past. I just want to get on with my life.’ As mentioned earlier, Julia Wright’s mother declined to talk personally about the tragedy – but chose to offer words through the family solicitor: ‘My clients would like to express their deepest sympathy to the family of Fiona Wood. They are rock solid in their support for Julia but this is tempered with the knowledge that the family of Mrs Wood has suffered a far greater loss.’
On 17 January 1996, mid-way through her sentence, Julia Wright was given permission to begin practising again upon her eventual release from prison. Before the General Medical Council’s professional conduct committee, it was heard that Julia was a woman who had loved ‘not wisely but too well’. Quite. As she had done in her initial court hearings, she bowed her head mee as the counsel for the GMC, said: ‘This is a story as sad as any I have ever had to present to this committee. This is a tale of a woman who loved her husband and her children. When she thought she was going to lose both, she was driven towards the edge of endurance.’ Wright’s counsel, said: ‘She feels considerable remorse and very sad that her actions have led to disrepute for her profession. She is from a family whose tradition is medical. She feels a doctor in her bones. You may take the view we cannot have convicted killers on the register, but she recognises in due course she will have to provide for herself financially. You must consider she has been assessed by psychiatrists and found to be of no further danger to the public, including her husband and his girlfriend.’ At the end of the hearing, the Committee chairman told her that her registration would be suspended for a period of 12 months. He went on: ‘Should you consider a return to medical practise, you should use your time to prepare a programme of rehabilitation and retraining.’ He also advised that she would have to return to the committee in due course to show what steps she had taken towards implementation of its recommendations. Did she ever resume her career in medicine on her release from prison? I’m not sure. And did Jeremy say with his latest partner – I don’t know the answer to that question either, but I doubt it, don’t you?
So,what do you make of what we have heard today.
It is quite a story. Look, we are not here to judge how anyone chooses to live their lives, that is up to them. But six weeks after his partner was killed does seem a tad hasty. But although ditching his wife by fax is maybe not the bedside manner you would expect from a top doctor, he didn’t commit any crime. This was purely Julia Wright who took fiona’s life in what must have been an utterly terrifying attack for Fiona.
Any yet, for her actions she only faced four years in prison and would potentially be able to practice medicine on her release. I think most people listening to this podcast would see the sentence as way too short and would also have questions about Julia returning to being a Doctor on her release. These arguments about needing to support herself on her release – sure, I get that, most people deserve a second chance in life once they are deemed safe to be released. But people who have been sent to prison for murder rarely are able to just pick up their careers as before – this is one of the consequences that must be faced for actions taken. And as for medicine being in her blood as her family were in medicine – well, I don’t buy that line either, do you? I imagine it is one of those issues where whatever your point of view, it is one you will feel strongly about.
This episode featured as episode 433 of the UK True Crime Podcast. The following sources were used:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/gynaecologist-s-wife-held-over-killing-1433702.htmlhttps://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12053765.mercy-shown-to-woman-who-stabbed-mistress/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/doctor-who-killed-can-practise-again-1324489.htmlhttps://www.newspapers.com/article/the-guardian-fionawood/150918135/?locale=en-GBhttps://www.thefreelibrary.com/Doc+who+killed+love+rival+is+struck+off.-a060884858