the times | Saturday October 17 2020 2GM 25
News
A married businessman who led a triple
life with three women was stabbed to
death in his girlfriend’s house over
Christmas, an inquest was told.
Gary Williams, 58, was married to
Elaine for many years, had been in a
secret relationship with a woman since
1991 and and had a second girlfriend.
Pembrokeshire and Carmarthen-
shire coroner’s court was told that nei-
ther his wife nor his partner was aware
of each other or that he had been seeing
Jessena Sheridan, 46, since 2014.
The father of one, who ran a business
selling caravans, left his Swansea home
on Christmas Eve last year, telling his
wife he was delivering a caravan to
Yorkshire and would be back the next
day. Instead he went to Miss Sheridan’s
home in Llanelli, where both were
found dead on December 29.
The inquest was told that Mr Willi-
ams would often be away overnight at
auctions around the country. MalcolmHusband killed at lover’s
home had led a triple life
Thompson, the coroner’s officer, said
that Mr Williams spent Christmas Eve
morning with his grandchildren before
leaving. The last contact Miss Sheri-
dan’s family had with her was a text
message on Christmas Day.
On December 29, family members
visited her home. “As they entered they
could see a large piece of cardboard in-
forming them not to enter and to call
the police, with a message indicating
her intention,” Mr Thompson said.
The naked, bloody body of Mr Willi-
ams was near Miss Sheridan, who had
cuts to her arms. A post-mortem found
he died from multiple stab wounds to
his neck, chest and abdomen. He also
had defensive injuries to his wrist.
The court was told that Miss Sheri-
dan died from self-inflicted knife
wounds and an overdose and that she
had mental health problems.
Paul Bennett, the acting senior
coroner, recorded a verdict of unlawful
killing for Mr Williams and a narrative
verdict that Miss Sheridan had taken
her own life.Will Humphries
Southwest CorrespondentIn one corner there is Elon Musk, Nasa,
and President Trump’s planned space
force. In the other there is a GP from
Hampshire with a laser pointer and a
firm belief that he owns Mars.
This planetary ownership, Philip
Davies believes, is the reason that he is
going to defeat the most powerful inter-
ests in the world. In doing so he hopes
to save space for everyone, in a week
when there has been, many lawyers say,
an attempt to undermine the very basis
of international space law.
Every week for the past ten years, Dr
Davies has gone outside into his garden
in Hampshire and pointed a laser at
Mars. Between five and 20 minutes
later, billions of photons have hit the
surface. And, occasionally, one has lib-
erated a molecule of CO 2 from the soil.
“It’s a nugatory amount,” Dr Davies,
54, said. But that doesn’t matter. “It’s
structurally trivial, but not legally trivi-
al.” Under one interpretation of inter-
national law, to gain possession of
unclaimed land requires simply show-
ing you have “improved” it. “Inter-
national law says that for rough, barren
land, you have to just do some early
things to exert control and make it
ready for future habitation,” Dr Davies
said — and he is giving the rough, bar-
ren land of Mars an atmosphere.
Dr Davies wishes to be clear, if only in
case any of his patients are reading, that
he is not mad. He neither wants to own
Mars nor believes that it is sensible.
Quite the contrary. His point is that
there is nevertheless a good legal case
that he and a consortium of backers
signed up to his website (http://
mars.sale) do own the planet — and
that this proves that the world should
start reforming space law.
“The Outer Space Treaty is being
progressively weakened,” he said.
“Countries are just coming and doing
their own thing, and the treaty is get-
ting marginalised.” The treaty wasHampshire GP
claims Martian
soil as his own
drafted in 1967, and is the foundation of
space law. Its primary goal was to stop
the Cold War weaponisation of space.
As private companies push into space
and nations look to build moon bases,
they are increasingly doing so in a legal
vacuum. In the process, they are mak-
ing their own space law as they go. This
worries not just Dr Davies but many
space lawyers. “Ultimately, then we’re
left with the only thing stopping nukes
going into space is something that
everyone’s happy to ignore,” he said.
Dr Davies’s plan is to force people to
re-examine and strengthen the space
treaty, by making an egregious land
grab of the kind that means interna-
tionally agreed revisions to the law are
essential. The High Court has rejected
his attempt to take the claim to the UN;
now he is trying the Court of Appeal.
“All I’m saying to the British govern-
ment is find me a fair court that has jur-
isdiction to hear this,” he said.
Philip de Man, professor in space law
at the University of Leuven, said that
the validity of Dr Davies’s claim was
“very disputable”, but that he was in
sympathy with the goal. This week a
group of nations including the UK and
the US signed the “Artemis Accords”,
dictating how future missions to the
moon would be run. To many lawyers
they appeared to be a direct attack on
the Outer Space Treaty and its guaran-
tee to keep space as common land. In
particular, the accords defined “safety
zones” around moon bases, which
looked a lot like lunar land grabs.
Professor de Man believes Dr
Davies’s aims to be noble. But, just occa-
sionally, Dr Davies also has a less noble
thought. What if he actually succeeds?
“The thing is, a claim like this may be
viewed as pathetic. But, ultimately, it is
registered,” he said. “You can imagine
the descendants of people with me now
actually being paid off for co-operation.
People will say, ‘We’ve got to get rid of
these pests, they’ve been bothering us
for the last 500 years.’”Tom Whipple Science Editor
Philip Davies has been firing photons at Mars with a laser pointer and says
that the resulting CO 2 released from the soil means that it is his under space lawdsays
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE