The wife of a murdered Co Armagh man and her lover have failed to overturn their convictions for his killing.
Judges in the Court of Appeal dismissed challenges brought by Jacqueline Crymble and Roger Ferguson, the man she was said to have "ensnared" in her plot.
Attempts to have their minimum jail terms of 20 years and 18 years respectively were also rejected.
The pair were both seeking to have quashed convictions for murdering father-of-two Paul Crymble.
The 35-year-old victim was suffocated to death with a plastic bag in June 2004.
Jacqueline Crymble, 37, claimed masked men broke into the family home on Ballybrae Road near Richill, Armagh looking for drugs and money before attacking and kidnapping her husband.
Ferguson, 33, from Tandragee, Armagh, insisted he was at home in bed on the night of the murder.
Their appeals centred heavily on arguments surrounding the trial judge's directions to the jury, including instructions about how to treat the evidence of Colin Robinson, a co-accused cleared of murder but found guilty of assisting an offender.
Crown lawyers resisted the challenges by arguing that a "devastating" body of evidence helped convict the pair.
Finger prints and DNA found on cables and a bag used to bind and then suffocate the victim were central to the case against them.
Ferguson and Jacqueline Crymble were also said to have slept together on the night before the murder, and tried to keep secret their affair which continued in its aftermath.
Crymble attempted to vilify her husband, who was described at trial as a dedicated and loving man.
And the Crown also defended legal directions given over lies told by the lovers.
Delivering judgment on the appeal, Lord Justice Girvan, sitting with Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan and Lord Justice Higgins, dismissed claims that the jury was invited to accept Robinson's evidence as correct and reject Jacqueline Crymble's as false.
"We are satisfied that the trial judge correctly laid the evidence before the jury, drew attention to the matters that should be considered, stressed the significance of Colin Robinson's evidence, if true, to the case against the co-accused and he properly drew attention to lies and inconsistencies in his evidence," he said.
Lord Justice Girvan said it was made sufficiently clear that it was the relevant lies of the individual defendant which could be evidence pointing towards the guilt of that person.
With both of the appeals dismissed, a Crown lawyer urged the court not to reduce the minimum tariff on either life sentence.
Michael Chambers stressed how Crymble planned her husband's murder far in advance.
Sir Declan ruled that neither sentence should be interfered with after declaring Crymble instigated and Ferguson willingly participated "in what was a gruesome murder".
© UTV News