Husband gets life for brutal murders

A jealous former Black Country man murdered his estranged wife and her new boyfriend after sneaking into her flat.

Graham Cox told her: "I can't share you and I can't lose you", before slitting her throat. Cox, aged 57, described as a "manipulative control freak", sneaked into his wife Helen's flat to hide in a cupboard to spy on her and Thomas McLoughlin, Preston Crown Court was told.

Cox heard the couple talk about "love and sex and going to bed that night" so when 60-year-old Mr McLoughlin left the flat to go to the shops, he bound and gagged his wife in the bedroom.

The mother-of-five, aged 40, listened as her partner returned to the flat in Blackpool, Lancashire, to be stabbed 24 times by Cox with a 15-inch chef's knife.

Cox showed her Mr McLoughlin's body and then told her: "I can't lose you and I can't share you," as he held the knife to her throat.

The court heard that Cox, who subjected his wife to years of domestic violence, then plunged the knife in.

He then told her to go to sleep and stroked her hair.

She was stabbed another 14 times, Mr Paul Reid QC, prosecuting, told the court.

Cox, originally from Darlaston, but later of Pleasant Street, Blackpool, admitted both murders on December 23 last year after being arrested in Wolverhampton.

He showed no emotion as he was given two life sentences and told he must serve at least 28 years before parole can be considered.

The couple had moved to Blackpool in 2007 after living in Wales, Tipton and Darlaston. They met in a homeless hostel in Wolverhampton in the late 1990s after Cox's previous relationship with Stella Hughes broke down, Mr Reid said.

Helen Cox already had two children when she met her husband. He had four children. They moved to Wales in 1999 but returned to the West Midlands before moving to Blackpool. They had another three children between 2005 and 2007.

One of Cox's children, Matthew described his father in court papers as "a violent person, a control freak and manipulative", the court heard.

Passing sentence, Judge Anthony Russell QC, Recorder of Preston, said: "It was a brutal and merciless killing carried out in the presence of Helen, who must have experienced the most horrific few minutes before you turned on her."