Womaniser jailed for wife's murder

File Photo / Supplied.

SYDNEY - Gold-digging womaniser Des Campbell didn't show a flicker of emotion as he was jailed for at least 24 years for pushing his besotted bride off a cliff.

But the victim's brother, Kevin Neander, showed no such restraint, telling reporters Campbell was "as low as a snake's guts".

"I hope Des is watching this," Mr Neander said outside the NSW Supreme Court today.

"I hope you suffer and look over the top of your shoulder for the next 24 years, mate."

A jury found Campbell, 52, guilty of murdering Janet Campbell, 49, by pushing her off a 50-metre cliff in the Royal National Park, south of Sydney, on March 24, 2005.

The former policeman, soldier and paramedic claimed his wife accidentally fell during their camping trip after leaving their tent to go to the toilet.

After his third wife's death, he married his fourth, a woman he met on a Filipino dating website, in January 2006.

In sentencing Campbell to a maximum of 33 years, Justice Megan Latham referred to his "sustained callousness" towards Janet who was killed "for nothing more than monetary gain".

Campbell, dressed in prison greens, remained poker-faced as the sentence was filmed in a packed courtroom.

His lawyer later said Campbell would appeal his conviction and sentence.

Justice Latham said he murdered the "outgoing, generous, warm-hearted and somewhat naive middle-aged country woman" after realising he had got as much financial advantage from her as he could.

His capacity for "deception, duplicity, manipulation and cruelty" was demonstrated by his conduct towards Janet during their relationship, which began in about mid-2003 in her hometown of Deniliquin in southern NSW.

"I have no doubt that the offender set about stripping Janet of her assets almost as soon as he met her" but did not begin planning the murder until December 2004.

"Janet's death must have been truly awful," Justice Latham said.

"The position of the shoe print at the edge of the cliff and the broken branch adjacent to that print suggests that she was conscious and aware of her fate for some short period of time before she fell.

"In those moments, the magnitude of her mistake in believing that marriage to the offender opened a fresh chapter in her life must have come home to her.

"She died in a strange place, far from her family, her friends and her community."

Mr Neander told reporters the family had warned his "lovely" sister about Campbell being a conman.

"We just could not talk her around," he said.

"She was bitten by love and that's it."

Justice Latham said Campbell's professed love for Janet could not be reconciled with the distasteful and derogatory comments he made about her.

They included him saying that a woman was "stalking him", that she was very wealthy but "pig ugly", and he did not know if he could bring himself to "shag" her.

Unbeknown to her, Campbell - whose internet dating profile stated "I know what fidelity is" - was juggling three other lovers, while he was wooing her and during their marriage.

"The evidence at trial established that the offender received the benefit of A$255,202 ($324,474) during Janet's lifetime and approximately A$340,000 after her death," the judge said.

His conduct in the days after her death "cannot in any way be reconciled with that of a grieving husband", the judge said.

A week after becoming a widower, Campbell took a lover on a luxury holiday in Townsville and two weeks later proposed to her.

He did not attend his wife's funeral.

"On that day, he paid A$79.95 to the RSVP dating website and sent messages to a number of female members," the judge said.

Mr Neander told reporters his sister would not hurt a fly.

"I just hope that, that day up there, on that hill, that she didn't suffer as long as this bloke is going to suffer for the next 24 years of his mongrel life," he said.

- AAP