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A sales manager who strangled his wife during an eight-hour porn and cocaine binge as their two daughters lay asleep has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 17 years and one month.
Paul Knight watched 'extreme, dark and disturbing' pornography on both his own phone and then on wife Isobella's handset after he killed her in her bed, a court heard.
The cocaine and porn addict 'exploded in rage and violence' and attacked Mrs Knight as she slept, smothering her with a pillow as he strangled her.
A court heard that following the 'sustained attack', Knight then continued to snort cocaine - leaving traces of the drug on his wife's neck - and also searched for escort workers before he composed a suicide note.
Knight killed the 32-year-old, who was known as Izzy, after she had twice asked him for a divorce in the months leading up to her death.
Judge Adrienne Lucking KC was told Mrs Knight had been researching houses where she could live with their daughters just hours before she was killed.
Sentencing him this afternoon for murder, the judge said Knight had caused 'incalculable suffering'.
She said: 'It's clear you were in the grip of an entrenched drug habit.
'Isobella had fallen out of love with you. You were both preparing for financial separation and seeking new homes.'
The judge said Knight had killed his wife in a 'fit of rage while the children were asleep in their bedroom'.
Isobella 'Izzy' Knight was described as 'beautiful, inside and out' by her family
Paul Knight had previously admitted the manslaughter of the beloved mother and daughter
Knight, wearing a blue suit and pink shirt, stood with his eyes closed as the sentence was handed down.
Earlier, Knight, 36, sat gazing at the floor in the dock as a court heard how he had run up a £14,000 credit card bill and had run overdrawn as a result of his decade-long and 'very heavy' addiction.
Mrs Knight had questioned him about where all of the family's money was being spent, and told friends her children would be lucky to ever have a holiday because of their money woes.
Prosecutor Pavlos Panayi KC said Knight had consumed £360 worth of cocaine which text messages showed he had collected from his drug dealer just three days before the murder.
A court heard the couple had been sleeping in separate bedrooms and wanted to sell their semi-detached home on a new-build estate.
On the night of the murder, a next-door neighbour reported hearing up to two-hours of 'door slamming' after Knight returned home from work.
His wife was last seen on CCTV going out to walk their dogs later that evening, returning to the house at Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire, shortly after 9.30pm.
The court heard that phone analysis showed that while Mrs Knight was walking the dogs, her husband began watching porn on his phone, and this continued throughout the night and into the early hours, with occasional gaps.
The analysis 'showed unusual, extreme and much darker and disturbing sexual content', Mr Panayi said.
He said officers believe Mrs Knight was killed some time after her phone locked at 11.27pm, and most likely during a gap in his watching history between 1.55am and 2.24am on June 13 last year.
The morning after killing his wife, Knight asked his mother to babysit their two children before making a botched attempt to kill himself
Knight, 36, previously admitted manslaughter but only admitted her murder on what was due to be the first day of his trial
The prosecutor said Knight may have switched to using his wife's phone to watch more porn afterwards because his own phone had died, and he was waiting for it to recharge.
The court heard Knight's search history suggested he had 'fantasies about wives having sex with other men', and had searched for porn featuring wives paying off their husband's debts through sexual services.
At 5am that morning, he deleted a note on his iPhone, which was subsequently recovered, in which he claimed his wife 'died peacefully' after he smothered her with a pillow and strangled her.
Phone analysis shows the note was written while he was also composing a suicide letter on his handset, a hard copy of which was later left on the hallway table.
In the suicide note, Knight blamed his ten-year drug habit, which he said started at a cider festival, for the family's financial woes.
In it, he referenced his wife twice asking for a divorce and said 'I can't see a way out'.
in another note, headed 'My Testimony', he added: 'My addiction has overcome sensibility.
'I'm an evil person, I'm so sorry...My only request is if I can be cremated. You can scatter me in the bin where I belong, or on Hadrian's Wall, far away from here.'
Mrs Knight's father has told the Daily Mail she was subjected to years of 'controlling behaviour and verbal and psychological abuse' by her husband
The body of Izzy Knight, 32, was discovered by police at the semi-detached home she shared in Northamptonshire with husband Paul and their two daughters
Mr Panayi said: 'The motivation for the murder is not clear, other than for the fact that the defendant exploded in anger while under the influence of significant quantities of cocaine.
'There is no evidence that either party was seeing someone else...jealously is not a part of the prosecution case.
'The consequential pressure the cocaine habit placed on their family finances...must have been immense.'
In a series of emotional victim impact statements read to the court, Mrs Knight's family told of their heartbreak at only discovering how unhappy she had been in the marriage following her death.
The victim's mother, Helena Sharrott, told the court: 'I wish that she had told me about the problems she was having with him (Knight). I would have stepped in and put a stop to it and that way she would still be here.'
She said her 'wacky, funny' daughter loved Christmas but she would 'never have another one'.
'I feel a terrible guilt that I was not there to protect my child, my daughter', Mrs Sharrrott added.
'On the day she died I was doing normal things when just a short distance away she was lying dead.'
Mrs Knight's sister, Georgina Davies, told how she had suffered panic attacks after the loss of the sister she was 'incredibly close' to and 'depended' on.
She added: 'Paul is not the man I believed him to be. He should have loved her, cherished her and protected her, but instead he has taken her life.'
Mrs Knight is pictured with her sister. She had two young children
Read More Revealed: Father strangled wife as their daughters slept because she was leaving him
Mrs Knight's father, Tim Davies, also read his victim impact statement to the court and told how identifying his daughter's body at a hospital mortuary was 'the most difficult day of my life'.
'I saw her into the world and on a hot sunny day I went into a refrigerated, pastel-coloured room and kissed her lips goodbye', he said through tears.
'I crumpled and collapsed on the floor.'
He told how he last saw his daughter in the week before she died when she came to his home but seemed 'withdrawn'.
Mr Davies told how he only later found out that she had asked Knight for a divorce in 2024 before the couple reconciled, and then again in early 2025, following her death.
It was 'sad beyond belief' that she felt unable to tell her family of the turmoil she had been going through and her wish to divorce, he added.
Mr Davies told the Daily Mail earlier this month how it was only after the murder that the family subsequently found out Mrs Knight had suffered years of mental and verbal abuse at the hands of her husband.
Mr Davies, 58, said: 'She suffered from his controlling behaviour and verbal and psychological abuse, particularly over the last few years.
'She told him that she wanted to split, and they had come to an agreement on how to handle things for the benefit of the kids. Izzy made it clear that she'd had enough.'
Northampton Crown Court heard how three hours after killing his wife, the defendant messaged his mothersaying the couple were unwell and asked her to come and collect the two children.
Knight took the two girls down to meet his mother at the front door, then after they had left, made unsuccessful suicide attempts inside the house, causing himself superficial cuts.
The court heard Knight then took two knives to his car and drove off, spending two hours driving around the county before crashing in a McDonalds' car park in Kettering.
An attending police officer spotted the blood-stained knives on the passenger seat - which was subsequently established to be his blood - and a colleague was despatched to the family home, where Mrs Knight's body was discovered.
Knight was arrested while still at the McDonald's and made no comment in interviews.
He had previously admitted Mrs Knight's manslaughter but had denied murdering his wife at their home.
A post-mortem examination found Mrs Knight had died as a result of pressure being applied to her neck.
The court heard Knight had no previous convictions.
John Lloyd-Jones, defending, said Knight accepts he 'must have flipped' while under the influence of cocaine.
He added: 'Cocaine, in his view, caused him to become paranoid and fixated on things, such as pornography.'
He said Knight 'maintains that he did not go into the bedroom intending to kill his wife', and had never been violent previously.
'The defendant did not suspect she was having an affair', he added.
Following the murder, Georgina Davies set up a fundraiser for Mrs Knight's two daughters, who have effectively now lost both their mother and their father.
The GoFundMe page has so far raised almost £18,000.
In a moving tribute at the time of Mrs Knight's death, her mother said: 'She was a loving mother, a treasured daughter, a best friend in sister form, a talented artist, and a great friend.