Former Team GB runner, 54, cleared of suffocating wife with pillow and subjecting her to eight years of controlling behaviour

By JAMES TOZER, NORTHERN CORRESPONDENT Published: 16:37, 17 June 2026 | Updated: 16:43, 17 June 2026 A former Team GB runner was today cleared of suffocating his GP wife with a pillow and subjecting her to years of violence and coercive behaviour. Curtis Robb, who became a highly successful surgeon after competing in two Olympics, was accused of leaving his wife fearing she was 'going to end up dead' during a family holiday in the Lake District. The 54-year-old used his strength as an ex-athlete to punch her with 'full on power' during a 'brutal' argument which culminated in him holding a pillow over her face, she had alleged. It came after almost a decade of ‘gaslighting’ during which he made her believe she was inadequate because of how she struggled to juggle raising their three children with her successful medical career, the prosecution claimed. The alleged attack with the pillow made her finally realise that she was 'going to end up dead' if she didn't leave him, and she decided to report him to police, she told a court. But giving evidence, Robb accepted he had thrown a pillow at his wife but denied holding it over her face and suffocating her. ‘There’s no way I would want to harm the mother of my children,’ he said. And he claimed that in reality it was his wife who had been threatening, controlling and sometimes lashed out physically, rarely letting him take the children out on his own. Curtis Robb, 54, (pictured arriving at court) was today cleared of eight years of controlling and coercive behaviour against his wife and suffocating during a family holiday in the Lake District Curtis Robb pictured at the World Athletics Championships in Stuttgart in 1993 Today a jury took just over five hours to clear Robb of one charge of controlling and coercive behaviour in a family setting and a second charge of suffocation. The former athlete breathed deeply and looked straight ahead as the jury delivered a majority verdict on the controlling behaviour count and a unanimous one on the suffocation allegation. Discharging him, Judge Simon Berkson told Robb: 'You can leave the dock.'  He was also awarded legal aid costs.  A former British champion, Liverpool-born Robb's best Olympics result was in Barcelona in 1992, where he finished sixth in the 800m final. In 1996 he was eliminated in the semi-final, later qualifying as a doctor and earning hundreds of thousands of pounds as an orthopaedic surgeon. Meanwhile his wife – also known as Sarah Caddy – juggled her role as a GP with working for best-selling psychiatrist Prof Steve Peters. The 47-year-old is a director and mentor of his Sheffield-based life-coaching firm Chimp Management, named after his book the Chimp Paradox. His trial heard the couple lived a ‘privileged lifestyle’ at their Cheshire home, employing a nanny to look after their three children as well as a cleaner, an ironing lady and a gardener. Robb, 54, who now works as a trauma and orthopaedic surgeon, had denies intentionally suffocating his wife as well as controlling behaviour over an eight-year period Robb would pay off her credit card bill every month, sometimes as much as £6,000. However the consultant, based at Warrington Hospital, was suspended from patient-facing duties after he was charged in April 2025.  His wife accused him of having 'intimidated, bullied, harassed and controlled’ her during their 16-year marriage. 'There was intense pressure all the time,' she said in a police interview played to a jury at Chester Crown Court. 'I could not eat and I was having nightmares. 'I felt like I was on the top of a cliff but I could not jump.' Ms Robb told police she had stayed with her husband ‘for the children’ as she didn’t want them to come ‘from a broken home’. She claimed Robb had previously grabbed her by the neck and pushed her into a pair of French windows. He also allegedly shoved her into a banister, making her fear she would be thrown down the stairs. Curtis Robb (pictured running for Team GB at the 1995 World Athletics Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden) competed at two Olympics But the alleged incident involving the pillow during the Easter holidays in 2023 was the 'final straw' and saw her hit 'rock bottom', she said. It was prompted by him using an electric toothbrush while their young children were asleep. 'It was very brutal and I thought I was going to die,’ she told police. ‘I thought I would end up dead.’ At that point she knew ‘I had to do something’, she said. Ms Robb said that during the alleged attack with a pillow, he also punched her four or five times in the arm. 'I was frozen and terrified,' she told police. 'He is an orthopaedic surgeon for a living. 'He is using strength, he is an ex-athlete and he is a strong person. She told the court that she sent him a text saying: 'If you lay a finger on me, the next place you will be is in court.' In response, the court heard Robb wrote her a letter accusing her of not letting him take their children out on his own and treating him 'cruelly'. After she went to police he was interviewed and denied being controlling or coercive. Giving evidence about the Lake District incident, Robb said he feared he would ‘get an injury’ and reacted by ‘pushing’ the GP with his free hand, causing her to ‘topple’ back onto the bed, he said, before picking up a pillow and throwing it at her. Asked if he put a pillow over her face, he replied: 'Have I heck. She remonstrated with me, I pushed her back.' Ms Robb said she had kept a notebook of incidents and described her husband as 'a Jekyll and Hyde figure', adding that she was 'constantly on edge and constantly in fear'. However Robb told police ‘it was the other way round’ and that it was his wife who would regularly ‘start hitting me’. Giving evidence, he said she would constantly have ‘gripes’ about him not doing enough to help around the house or with their children. Robb said he tried to ‘reason’ with her but it never ‘got through’. In his closing speech, prosecutor Paulinus Barnes told jurors that Robb had tried to portray himself as ‘a caring father, a doting husband’. The reality, he said, was that Ms Robb ‘lived in fear and she was subjected over a number of years to violence’. ‘The cumulative effect on her was devastating.’ But Martine Snowdon, defending Robb, said the trial had aired their ‘dirty washing’, but put it to jurors that anyone who’s been in a relationship knows they have ‘ups and downs’. She said he denied being violent or controlling, adding that his account of the marriage was that it was ‘like walking on eggshells at times’. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.