Woman murdered by jealous partner
A pregnant motherof-two was murdered on Christmas Day by a jealous partner who wrongly believed she was cheating on him.
James Hutchinson, 43, was yesterday given a life sentence with a minimum of 23 years after he pleaded guilty to murdering 39-year-old Nicola Woodman at her home in Bradford last year.
A PREGNANT mother-of-two was murdered on Christmas Day by a jealous partner who wrongly believed she was cheating on him.
James Hutchinson, 43, was yesterday given a life sentence with a minimum of 23 years behind bars after he pleaded guilty to murdering 39-year-old Nicola Woodman at her home in Bankholme Court, Bradford, last year.
A court heard how Miss Woodman, an NHS worker, suffered at least 102 injuries, including more than 20 stab wounds, during an attack which involved the use of two knives and a wooden pickaxe handle. When her body was discovered at the house on Boxing Day police found a pregnancy test kit nearby and prosecutor Jonathan Sharp confirmed that DNA analysis had proved that Hutchinson was the father of the unborn child.
Bradford Crown Court heard that yesterday would have been her 40th birthday and Mr Sharp read statements from her parents’ in which they spoke of their unbearable loss.
Her father Arthur Woodman described his daughter’s death as “a hammer blow” and said he felt hatred towards Hutchinson.
Miss Woodman’s mother Joyce Bird said her death had left a “massive hole” in their lives, adding: “I will never forgive him.”
Unemployed Hutchinson, who was often drunk and used heroin and cocaine, had been remanded in prison for another offence before being released on conditional bail in mid-November.
Mr Sharp said Hutchinson should have been staying at his uncle’s home and he was in breach of his bail when he went to stay with Miss Woodman on Christmas Eve.
“Either while he was in custody or shortly afterwards he began to become obsessed with the idea that Nicola was being unfaithful to him,” said Mr Sharp.
The prosecutor said there was no evidence to justify Hutchinson’s “delusional jealousy” and he had not even read a letter from Miss Woodman in which she expressed her love for him and her frustration with his behaviour.
In the letter she said: “We deserve happiness James. We deserve our future.”
After the murder Hutchinson ransacked the house trying to find evidence to justify his suspicions, but he then went to bed before going out the next day to get methadone and drugs.
He rang 999 at tea-time on Boxing Day saying: “My partner’s been stabbed. She’s been there 12 hours, I think she’s dead.”
After watching the emergency services arrive, he drove off in Miss Woodman’s car and was arrested early the following morning asleep in the vehicle.
He told police that he had challenged Miss Woodman about her supposed infidelity but her repeated denials only enraged him.
“People just snap, you know what I mean,” he told police. “She was six weeks pregnant, (I was) only out of prison four. I was in three weeks.”
Hutchinson’s barrister Michelle Colborne QC suggested that the pregnancy test had tipped her client over the edge.
Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said Miss Woodman had been a good woman who had fallen in love with a thoroughly bad man.
“You sponged off her... and she loved you to the bitter end,” said the judge. “You are not ill. You are wicked. The attack was frenzied, it was cruel, it was with a ferocity that defies belief even in the hardened experience of this court.”
After the hearing, Det Chief Insp Stuart Spencer, of West Yorkshire Police, said Hutchinson’s “callous and calculating” attack was “monstrous”, and he praised Miss Woodman’s family for their strength and dignity.