http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090605/twl-honeymoon-scuba-death-husband-jailed-3fd0ae9.html
Honeymoon Scuba Death: Husband Jailed
Friday, June 5 07:25 am
SkyNews © Sky News 2009
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An American man whose new wife was found dead on the ocean floor during their honeymoon scuba dive trip has been jailed for her manslaughter. Skip related content
David Gabriel Watson, known as Gabe, admitted he failed to give his wife Christina emergency oxygen and allowed her to sink to her death while diving on Australia's Great Barrier Reef more than five years ago.
He was sentenced to four and a half years in prison - but the sentence will be suspended after 12 months, meaning Watson will serve just a year in jail.
A dive instructor found newly-wed Tina Watson, a novice diver, lying on the bottom of the ocean.
Her husband, an experienced diver trained in rescue procedures, had apparently left her and returned to the dive boat.
The incident was unwittingly captured by another diver, whose holiday photograph revealed Tina's body lying horizontally in the distance.
An inquest into her death last year heard that a fellow diver in the party saw Watson, 32, bear-hugging his 26-year-old wife before re-surfacing without her.
The coroner found it was likely Watson killed his wife by holding her underwater and turning off her air supply.
He was later charged with murder - but told the Australian court he would plead not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter.
The prosecutor accepted the plea on the basis that Watson had failed in his duty as his wife's dive buddy by failing to give her emergency oxygen when she needed it.
Watson allowed Tina to sink to the ocean floor without making any serious attempt to rescue her and also failed to inflate her buoyancy vest or remove weights from her belt to allow her to surface, prosecutor Brendan Campbell said.
"He virtually extinguished any chance of her survival," he told the court.
Watson told police his new wife had knocked his mask off and then sank too quickly for him to save her.
The argument was rejected by prosecutors, who said she could not have sank so quickly.
Watson, who has since remarried, voluntarily returned to Australia last month to face his murder charge.
He was sentenced to four and a half years in jail.
Honeymoon Scuba Death: Husband Jailed
Friday, June 5 07:25 am
SkyNews © Sky News 2009
* Print Story
An American man whose new wife was found dead on the ocean floor during their honeymoon scuba dive trip has been jailed for her manslaughter. Skip related content
David Gabriel Watson, known as Gabe, admitted he failed to give his wife Christina emergency oxygen and allowed her to sink to her death while diving on Australia's Great Barrier Reef more than five years ago.
He was sentenced to four and a half years in prison - but the sentence will be suspended after 12 months, meaning Watson will serve just a year in jail.
A dive instructor found newly-wed Tina Watson, a novice diver, lying on the bottom of the ocean.
Her husband, an experienced diver trained in rescue procedures, had apparently left her and returned to the dive boat.
The incident was unwittingly captured by another diver, whose holiday photograph revealed Tina's body lying horizontally in the distance.
An inquest into her death last year heard that a fellow diver in the party saw Watson, 32, bear-hugging his 26-year-old wife before re-surfacing without her.
The coroner found it was likely Watson killed his wife by holding her underwater and turning off her air supply.
He was later charged with murder - but told the Australian court he would plead not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter.
The prosecutor accepted the plea on the basis that Watson had failed in his duty as his wife's dive buddy by failing to give her emergency oxygen when she needed it.
Watson allowed Tina to sink to the ocean floor without making any serious attempt to rescue her and also failed to inflate her buoyancy vest or remove weights from her belt to allow her to surface, prosecutor Brendan Campbell said.
"He virtually extinguished any chance of her survival," he told the court.
Watson told police his new wife had knocked his mask off and then sank too quickly for him to save her.
The argument was rejected by prosecutors, who said she could not have sank so quickly.
Watson, who has since remarried, voluntarily returned to Australia last month to face his murder charge.
He was sentenced to four and a half years in jail.
