A VET described by a judge as the most ''evil, selfish, and criminally

callous man'' he had sentenced was jailed for life yesterday and told he

must serve a minimum of 20 years for poisoning his wife.

David Ryan James, 40, of Stapenhill, Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire,

pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife, Sandra, 38, mother of

their three children, and claimed she acted as a spurned wife and

committed suicide to make it look like murder when he was having an

affair with another woman.

A jury of eight men and four women at Stafford Crown Court took six

hours to reach its verdict after a 20-day trial.

James killed his wife in January 1994 while he was having a

relationship with the 33-year-old wife of a family friend who also had

three children.

After Mrs James's death, the other woman, Mrs Catherine Crooks, moved

into the house at Tower Road with her three youngsters to look after

James's three children.

The prosecution said that for several weeks Mrs James was fed

Immobilon -- a powerful drug used to anaesthetise horses -- in drinks of

orange juice and was also given phenobarbitone in place of an antibiotic

she used for a chest infection.

Mr Justice Hidden told James: ''You are as evil, selfish, and

criminally callous a man as I have ever had to sentence. You used your

knowledge and expertise in your career as a vet in which your wife had

supported and encouraged you, to put together a calculated and wicked

plan to end her life and take her from her children so that you could

afford to live with a woman you had chosen to replace her.

''You carried out a plot over a period of weeks before and after

Christmas, 1993. You abused the trust she had in you by giving her and

getting her to swallow over a period of weeks capsules containing

phenobarbitone.

''You used injections and swallowing by mouth thereafter as routes to

get these drugs into her body. You used phenobarbitone to render her

unable to stop you.''

The judge said he ''doubted very much'' whether a decision by James to

use the drug Revivon -- an antidote to Immobilon -- was a ''change of

heart''.

''I doubt very much whether you were reacting from that plan. If you

were, you very quickly went back to that plan and carried out her

execution.

''You had to kill her and you also had to insult and harm her memory

by making up an issue that she had committed suicide. That was a

diabolical plot.

''The only sentence I can pass by law is one of life imprisonment but

I shall recommend to the Home Secretary that you not be released from

prison for 20 years.''