A Dutch man has been jailed for 15 years for the murder of his Irish wife at their home in the Netherlands.
Martina O’Brien Viguurs was murdered at her home in the city of Den Bosch, also known as 's-Hertogenbosch, on 9 November 2015.
Passing sentence on 63-year-old Arnold Viguurs, the three-judge court described the death of the Limerick woman as "a shocking act of violence".
The 15-year sentence is considered severe by Dutch standards as Viguur has no previous convictions.
In their judgment, the judges said a severe punishment was necessary because of "the immense pain, suffering and loss her death had caused to her eight children and 11 grandchildren".
During his trial, Viguurs said he killed his 64-year-old wife because he was afraid to admit they could not travel to Ireland as they had planned because there was no money to pay for the trip or enough to buy a new home there.
The court heard Ms O'Brien Viguurs was killed a short time before the couple were due to catch a flight to Ireland and view houses for sale as they had recently sold their Dutch home.
Viguurs said he told his wife that debts had cancelled out their entire savings from his half of a real estate business he sold in 2013, before killing her.
He claimed he acted in the spur of the moment, but later during police questioning he admitted he thought about ways of killing his wife the previous night to get out of coming clean about their financial situation.
He said he wrote a suicide note two days earlier in which he said he realised if he took his own life he would have to "take her with me".
After killing his wife, the court heard Viguurs called emergency services after realising he could not take his own life.
A post-mortem examination revealed that Ms O'Brien Viguurs had defensive wounds on her hands and arms and had been bludgeoned with a hammer and strangled.
