A woman whose former husband tried to have her attacked by a hitman has spoken of her relief after seeing him jailed for five-and-a-half years.

Nurse Rookmaka Hurree spoke of her horror at the crime and said she wanted to concentrate on rebuilding her life.

Meanwhile, Yamritlall Futhee was today starting a prison sentence after a judge told him he had committed a "very wicked" crime.

The jury at Bradford Crown Court yesterday found him guilty of ordering the hitman to break her legs and beat her until she had brain damage.

But the 'hitman' was an undercover policeman, who had been tipped off about Futhee's violent intentions.

His wife of 12 years Rookmala, a nurse living in the Bolton area of Bradford, said:

"I am glad he has got his sentence. If it

hadn't have been an undercover policeman I wouldn't be here. I would have been very badly injured.

"Now I want to get on with my life with my two daughters.

"How can anybody, but someone who you were married to, do something like that?"

She said: "The jury found him guilty, which he is. It's a horrible crime, what he planned to do to me. I think we have to get on with our lives and I hope he doesn't try it again when he gets out."

The court heard how Futhee, 50, a nurse of Thackeray Road, Ravenscliffe, offered £2,000 to injure his ex-wife because he was determined she should not enjoy money from their acrimonious divorce settlement.

A friend introduced him to the 'hitman' and, after several meetings at Hartshead Moor Services on the M62 and at a Little Chef off the M606 in Bradford, the fee was agreed.

What Futhee did not know was that all their conversations were being secretly recorded by detectives.

Mrs Hurree had known nothing of the plan to harm her until the police came to her Bradford home last December.

She said: "They told me I was in a lot of danger and they were there to protect me, and what he planned to do to me.

"I couldn't believe it. I was so shocked."

Sentencing Futhee, Judge Gavin Barr-Young said he had committed a "very wicked offence".

He had allowed the matrimonial proceedings and the arguments over property and maintenance payments to eat away at what had once been a "pleasant nature".

The judge added: "You allowed those

matters to so dominate your ordinary thinking that you allowed yourself firstly to contemplate this vicious idea and then to pursue it."

Futhee had denied a charge of incitement to cause grievous bodily harm with intent. He insisted he had never intended that the attack should be carried out.

He said he had only continued to meet what he thought was a hitman because of pressure from a friend.

After the hearing, Detective Sergeant Gerry O'Shea, of Eccleshill Police, said: "Mr Futhee totally over-reacted to what is a fairly common situation during the break-up of his marriage.

"He felt his wife would gain financially at his expense and he planned to have her very seriously injured so that she would not enjoy the cash.''

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