Cuckolded husband who punched his cheating wife's rugby-playing lover when he caught them in bed together is cleared of threatening to burn down the marital home
A cuckolded husband who allegedly threatened to burn down his marital home after he caught his wife in bed with her rugby-playing lover has walked free from court.
David Lukey was said to have telephoned his brother-in-law the day after he was 'destroyed' when he walked in on estranged wife Andrea and lover Chris Andrews.
The 47-year-old was alleged to have told Ian Donegan that if 'Chris steps foot in my house again I will kill him and burn the house down and take the kids.'
Mr Lukey, an aerospace engineer, and his wife had previously agreed to a trial separation after having marriage difficulties, the court heard.
But jurors heard he discovered his 37-year-old wife and her lover in a state of undress when he turned up at the former marital home to do his laundry.
In March last year he admitted a charge of assaulting Mr Andrews by punching him in the face during the confrontation at the house in Blandford Forum, Dorset, and was dealt with by way of a community order.
But he denied threatening to destroy or damage property during the phone call with Mr Donegan on September 21, 2023.
Mr Lukey, now of Ferndown, Dorset, was found not guilty on Friday following a trial at Bournemouth Crown Court.
Afterwards Mr Lukey said he was relieved he could finally move on with his life after nearly two years of the threat of prison hanging over his head.
He also accused the CPS of wasting taxpayers' money by pursuing the case against him and 'dragging it all up' again.
The trial heard Mr Lukey had been living in a tent for six weeks so Andrea and their two children could remain in the family home and he continued to pay the mortgage and bills.
The defendant told jurors that 2023 was 'not a vintage year' for him, adding: 'The year began with discovering my wife was having an affair, by the end of the year I had lost my partner of 14 years, my house, my pets, and most heartbreakingly no longer lived with my children.'
Mr Lukey described how he then found his wife with her lover at the marital home.
'I returned to the house, believing it would be empty. I caught them in my house, in our marital bed, which destroyed me.
'I gave Chris the chance to leave, but Andrea stopped him and goaded me saying 'this isn't your house, this is my house, you have no right to be here'. This was a house I was still paying the mortgage and bills for.
"I tried to take my frustration out on objects not people, she continued to goad me. I said 'if you don't get out I'm going to punch Chris in the face', so I did, I punched him.
"That night I was released from cells and was told Ian was my point of contact to see my children."
Mr Donegan alleged that in a phone call the next day Mr Lukey made the chilling threat.
Mr Donegan said: "He referred to Chris, who at the time I had never met. He was someone my sister was seeing, which I didn't know at the time.
"He said 'if Chris steps foot in my house again I will kill him and burn the house down. I will burn the house down and take the kids'.
"He also said 'they need to know I'm serious about this'.
"I said to David not to do anything stupid, tried to calm down the situation."
Mr Lukey denied this and told the court he actually said if Chris went in his house again he would stop paying the mortgage immediately and put the house on the market.
Mr Lukey said: "When [the police] told me what the threats were, I was in total shock. This was a house I had put myself through hell to keep a roof over my kids' heads.
"I did not make that threat. The phone conversation mainly revolved around the kids.
"I did say I'm going to stop paying the mortgage if he goes in my house again and put the house on the market.
"I accept if I have done something, I accept responsibility for my actions. That night was the worst night of my life, I couldn't stop picturing what I had seen, by the next day I had a complete mental breakdown.
"I think if you put anyone who has been struggling so hard, living in a tent, and dropped them into that house they are paying for to find their wife in bed with another man, I don't think it's unreasonable to say someone might punch that man.
"It was wrong and I have paid the price for it, but I've served my sentence.
"I continued paying the mortgage for months while Chris moved into the house."
In the earlier prosecution, Poole magistrates heard the Lukeys had been married for a decade after Mrs Lukey left her native Czech Republic to marry the engineer, but the relationship had 'struggled' in recent years.
By the time of the confrontation at the former marital home, Mrs Lukey considered herself single, and although her estranged husband had moved out, they had an agreement that he could return to the house to see his children and do his washing.
Mrs Lukey told police in a statement ahead of that case that the husband she had 'left my whole life in Prague for 'smashed the television screens, smashed photos on the bedside table and the door under the stairs' after discovering her with her lover.
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