Obsessed cage fighter gets 32 years in jail for stabbing ex- girlfriend to death

A FORMER professional cage fighter who murdered his exgirlfriend in front of her 13- yearold daughter has been jailed for a minimum of 32 years.

Violent criminal Andrew Wadsworth, 37, stabbed Melissa Belshaw to death two months after he came out of prison on licence and became consumed by an obsession about her sex life.

Fuelled by cocaine and alcohol, Wadsworth subjected the 32- year- old to an attack with a large kitchen knife in her bedroom on the afternoon of May 20.

A passer- by bravely rescued Ms Belshaw’s terrified daughter by smashing into the locked house in Billinge, Wigan, with a hammer.

Wadsworth then went out on to the street armed with the same knife and repeatedly stabbed a neighbour who heard the screams coming from the property in Upholland Road.

He then kicked a police constable in the head at the scene where he was arrested and then later punched another officer in the face in a police cell, Manchester Crown Court heard.

Wadsworth admitted stabbing Ms Belshaw but relied on a partial defence to murder of a loss of control following what he claimed was a string of shock revelations about her sex life.

Sentencing him to life imprisonment, Mrs Justice Yip said: “Your character assassination undoubtedly went beyond anything that was justified.

“You had degraded her in her life and you continued to do so after her death.

“She may have made some mistakes in her life but at the time of her death she was pursuing her dream of having her own beauty salon. She was still only young and was seeking to turn her life around.”

Wadsworth, of Cranfield Road, Wigan, was found guilty by the jury of murder and attempted murder and pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two assaults on police officers.

He was cleared by the court of making a threat to kill Ms Belshaw’s daughter.