Anne Marie Cropper met Ian Gordon in June 2015. By the 10th September 2015 she was dead in the flat that they shared in Royal Terrace, Southport. Mr Gordon instructed a friend to call the emergency services and told paramedics when they arrived that she had fallen in the shower.

Mr Gordon began by denying both murder and manslaughter, but admitted manslaughter at the beginning of his trial, prosecuted by Nigel Power QC. Successful hearsay applications were made to adduce evdience of what Mrs Cropper had told her friends and family, which included the threat that if she left him or reported him to the police, he would cut off her clitoris with a pair of nail scissors.

After 4 days of evdience, and shortly before the pathologist was to give evdience of the very large number of non-accidental injuries found at post mortem, the defendant pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life imprinsoment with a minimum term of 20 years.

Press report here.