By James Simons-
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 the attack on September 20 last year.
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Both were found guilty following a two-week trial, in which the court heard they had hatched the plan so they could continue their affair, and have now been sentenced to 19 years in prison each.
Mrs Mills (pictured)and her husband had been at their caravan in Cenarth, Ceredigion, in September 2024 when two masked men who had cable ties, gas masks and imitation firearms burst in and assaulted Mr Mills.
Despite being badly beaten, the Army veteran fought off the intruders, who fled the caravan park and were found hiding in nearby bushes by a police helicopter.
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Mr Mills was attacked at a static caravan he shared with his wife by Berry and Thomas, who were masked and bearing imitation handguns and carrying gas masks, pliers and cable ties in a rucksack.
The other man was 47-year-old Steven Thomas, who had been recruited by Berry to help carry out the attack. He was found not guilty of conspiracy to murder by a jury, but admitted possessing a firearm with intent to cause Mr Mills to believe that unlawful violence would be used against him or another person.
Geraint Berry in a police cell after arrest for plotting murder of Christopher Mills Image: PA
Police found gas masks and a fake suicide note addressed to Mrs Mills purporting to have been written by her husband. It had DNA on the seal which matched Mrs Mills’ DNA.
Police found that she was aware that the ambush would take place, and had played an integral part in conspiring to murder her husband.
Imitation gun found by intruders following their arrest Image: PA
Dyfed-Powys Police said the couple had previously discussed using gas to kill Mr Mills, while making it look like he had taken his own life.
Detective Inspector Sam Gregory said: “No explanation has been given by any of the three defendants for the fake suicide note or the gas masks in the rucksack. What’s clear is that these were not being used to frighten Mr Mills – they were there to set up a fake suicide.”
Messages were retrieved from Berry informing her that he had arrived at the holiday park just moments before they burst into the caravan, and after the men fled the scene, Mrs Mills sent a message to Berry saying: “Police have been called get away, delete all communications … please on both phones … I love you”.
Digital forensic work uncovered messages between Mrs Mills and Berry making reference to ways in which they could kill her husband, with investigators finding messages dated the previous month saying that Mr Mills “should just die”.
The couple had been discussing ways in which Berry could plan a “hit” on Mr Mills, with his wife saying she wished she could poison her husband with sleeping tablets, while Berry started making arrangements for someone to shoot him.
He sent messages to a contact enquiring about a gun with a suppressor, and queried how to make a Mini Cooper S – the car being driven by the victim – explode on starting.
When Berry told Mrs Mills he was going to meet with some “boys” to plan “what they are going to do with him”, she responded: “Yes, lovely, thank you”.
When Mrs Mills was arrested, she told officers: “I’m going to prison for this, aren’t I?”
At Swansea Crown Court on Friday, Mr Justice Nicklin KC jailed both 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 previously admitted.
Sentencing Berry, the judge 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 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 deleted the text messages because she knew “very well” they were incriminating.
He said: “Geraint Berry may have been largely responsible for devising the method but you encouraged him to execute the plan.
“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.”
Dyfed-Powys Police said the couple had previously discussed using gas to kill Mr Mills, while making it look like he had taken his own life.
Detective Inspector Sam Gregory said: “No explanation has been given by any of the three defendants for the fake suicide note or the gas masks in the rucksack. What’s clear is that these were not being used to frighten Mr Mills – they were there to set up a fake suicide.”
Messages were retrieved from Berry informing her that he had arrived at the holiday park just moments before they burst into the caravan, and after the men fled the scene, Mrs Mills sent a message to Berry saying: “Police have been called get away, delete all communications … please on both phones … I love you”.
Digital forensic work uncovered messages between Mrs Mills and Berry making reference to ways in which they could kill her husband, with investigators finding messages dated the previous month saying that Mr Mills “should just die”.
The couple had been discussing ways in which Berry could plan a “hit” on Mr Mills, with his wife saying she wished she could poison her husband with sleeping tablets, while Berry started making arrangements for someone to shoot him.
He sent messages to a contact enquiring about a gun with a suppressor, and queried how to make a Mini Cooper S – the car being driven by the victim – explode on starting.
When Berry told Mrs Mills he was going to meet with some “boys” to plan “what they are going to do with him”, she responded: “Yes, lovely, thank you”.
When Mrs Mills was arrested, she told officers: “I’m going to prison for this, aren’t I?”
DI Gregory said: “The communication between Mills and Berry that we were able to retrieve made it clear that since the end of June 2024, the pair had embarked on a secret relationship. In a short period of time, Berry, encouraged by Mills, became increasingly occupied by hostile thoughts about her husband, and the pair had communicated a number of ways in which they could kill him. Despite these conversations, Mills claimed she thought these plans were just fantasy and that their ideas would never be acted on.”
Michelle Mills, from Llangennach, Carmarthenshire, was jailed for 19 years for conspiracy to murder, and given an 18-month sentence to run concurrently for perverting the course of justice.
Berry, from Clydach, Swansea, was convicted of conspiracy to murder, for which he received a 19-year prison sentence, and pleaded guilty to possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, for which he was given an 18-month sentence to run concurrently.
Thomas, of Blaengwynfi, in the Afan Valley, who the judge said had played a “subordinate role” to Berry, was handed a 12-month prison sentence after he admitted possessing an imitation firearm.
DI Gregory said: “While this case has all the makings of a TV drama, at the heart of it was a very real conspiracy to take someone’s life, and there were potentially fatal consequences to the planned attack on September 20. Mills and Barry had plotted not one, not two, but three attempts to take Mr Mills’ life, and I have no doubt that they would have continued to come up with these plans had they not been caught that night.”
Georgia Jones, senior prosecutor at Crown Prosecution Service Cymru-Wales, said: “This was a devious, callous and murderous plot devised by a wife and her lover to kill her husband. The evidence painted a clear picture, showing that the two defendants had been discussing different ways of killing Mr Mills over the weeks leading up to the attack.
“However, their plans fell apart when Mr Mills managed to bravely fight off his attackers. We would like to thank Mr Mills, and the other witnesses, for their support throughout this case, enabling us to bring these offenders to justice.”
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