Ambulance called for murderer Paul Ross Charlton who fainted after guilty verdict

Convicted murderer Paul Ross Charlton has been taken to hospital after he fainted in the dock as he was dramatically found guilty of the bashing murder of TV singer Joanne Howell.

Joanne Howell, a talented Melbourne singer, was found dead in her Poath Rd home in Hughesdale in April 2007. Picture: Supplied

A convicted killer closed his eyes and crashed to the ground as he was found guilty of the bashing murder of his girlfriend, TV singer Joanne Howell.

Paul Ross Charlton was rushed to hospital after he fainted in the Supreme Court dock seconds after a jury found him guilty of murdering the Countdown star in her Hughesdale home.

Charlton told police he took his little dog, Bundy, for a two-hour stroll after having an argument with Joanne, 51, on the night of April 21, 2007.

He said he came home to find his girlfriend dead at the bottom of the stairs, suffering a traumatic blow to the back of the head and strangulation from a cord.

But it took a Supreme Court jury just one day to reject his lies, finding him guilty of murder following a three-week trial.

Charlton, 68, stood to learn his fate shortly after 4pm on Thursday.

“Guilty”, the foreman said, as Charlton opened his mouth in a gasp.

He clenched his left hand and second later, fell to his left with a thud to the ground as Joanne’s family cried in the gallery.

He remained lying on the floor in the dock as the jury was removed from the court.

Charlton was attended to by court staff and a woman rushed to his side, as Justice James Dudley Elliott confirmed that an ambulance had been called.

Paul Charlton arrives at the Supreme Court during his trial for the cold case murder of ex-partner Joanne Howell. Picture: Aaron Francis

Around 20 minutes later, a dishevelled looking Charlton, with his blue tie pulled off and crisp white shirt unbuttoned, struggled to rise from the floor of the dock with the assistance of two paramedics.

Holding his right hand to his upper left chest and breathing heavily, he was placed in a wheelchair by medical staff, who had been working on him from behind the walls of the dock for about 10 minutes.

Justice Elliott declared Charlton was now in custody, but allowed the convicted murderer to be taken away for treatment at St Vincent’s hospital.

“I understand he’s been kept in custody while that’s occurring,” Justice Elliott said.

Joanne, a talented singer, performed on hit Aussie show Countdown alongside host Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum in the 1970s.

Outside court, Joanne’s sister Lisa Hennessy said “we got the result we want, and he’s going to get the result that he deserves”.

Ms Hennessy said when the guilty verdict came down, she broke down in “tears of joy” and kept repeating in her head: “We’ve done it, we’ve done it for you”.

She said “there’s no closure” after the death of her “vibrant, beautiful” sister, but the family had “got answers, and we got the result we always knew”.

Joanne’s nephew Nathan Harris said: “Twelve random people have validated what we’ve believed for 16 years so it’s just a weight lifted off our shoulders.”

“Justice for Jo!” sister Michelle Jordan exclaimed, before the family headed off for a drink to celebrate.

The property in Poath Road, Hughesdale, where Joanne Howell was murdered.

At trial, Charlton’s defence lawyers tried to pin the murder on an “alternative killer” — an ex-boyfriend Joanne had barely seen in 10 years or her estranged brother.

But a jury of 12 rejected his attempts, finding it was Charlton that killed his partner as their “doomed” relationship took a turn for the worse.

The trial heard that the very day Joanne was killed, she’d told Charlton he had “30 days” to get out of her house, even telling him a “big fat lie” that she was planning to move to Perth to get him out.

“I’ve given him 30 days. He’d been an absolute prick and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with him,” the jury heard Joanne told her friend, Rosalind Macdonald, on April 20.

But the court was told the IT worker, now aged 68, “doesn’t want to leave, he won’t leave, he refuses to leave her home”, which created “conflict and acrimony” up until the hours before she died.

That Saturday night, neighbours say they heard Joanne call Charlton a “f---wit”, then noticed a “dull thud” at about 9.15pm in the spot where her body was later found.

Charlton confirmed to police they’d fought and that she called him a “f---wit and an arsehole” as he tried to watch the TV before she threw the remote out the back door.

But he claimed this was when Joanne went upstairs, while he took little Bundy, scratching at the door, for a two-hour walk from about 9.20pm.

He couldn’t recall any of the streets he walked along, telling officers, “I don’t look at the street signs”, and said he returned home to find the horror scene.

Joanne Howell suffered a traumatic blow to the back of the head and strangulation from a cord. Picture: Supplied

Police found the door to the garage kicked open, and Charlton said he’d discovered Joanne in a state of undress, with her top pulled up and pants pulled down.

Crown prosecutor Patrick Bourke KC said the crime scene didn’t “look right”.

“What we say of course is that the accused man did those things to deflect attention away from himself onto another possibility,” Mr Bourke said.

Cops also found a letter on the coffee table written by Joanne, believed to be on the day she died, to Charlton that read: “I want to make it clear to you that this is not just another argument. I am not continuing with this relationship any more for the following reasons.”

Defence barrister Megan Tittensor SC said the couple had an “up and down” relationship where she “loved him one minute and was kicking him out the next”.

In the week before she died, Ms Tittensor said Joanne had expressed concerns to a handyman that someone had tampered with her garage door, and said to a friend that she feared “someone might be watching her” after her plants were trampled on.

The lawyer told the court it was “not such an unlikely combination of events” that Joanne “was killed shortly after (Charlton) leaves to go and walk the dog”.

But the jury thought otherwise.

Charlton avoided charges for 14 years.

But on Thursday, his days of escaping justice were over.

He will be sentenced at a later date.