[ad_1]
A former director has been jailed for a minimum of 31 years after murdering his estranged wife and partner in a “bloodbath” on New Year’s Day.
Rhys Hancock, 40, killed Helen Hancock and Martin Griffiths at the old marriage home in Duffield, Derbyshire, before calling the police saying, “I just murdered my wife in her bed.”
Derby Crown Court was briefed on how Hancock was discovered inside the property covered in blood after the murders, telling police, “I’m hardly going to deny it, look at me.”
Hancock inflicted 66 injuries on his wife with two kitchen knives he had taken from his mother’s home in Etwall, while Griffiths suffered 37 injuries.
Ambulance personnel described it as a “bloodbath” and one said it was the most violent scene they had encountered in 17 years.
Ms. Hancock, a physical education teacher, and Mr. Griffiths were pronounced dead at the scene in New Zealand Lane just before 5am on January 1.
Hancock admitted to two murder charges at an earlier hearing.
The murders took place on New Zealand Lane in Duffield, Derbyshire
Before traveling to the crime scene, Hancock told his mother of his plans, saying that “he would receive 25 or 30 years in prison and that he would be released when he was 60 years old.”
Michael Auty QC said at the sentencing hearing: “There is no escaping that these murders were premeditated, they were savage, the attack was ruthless, there were elements of sadism and the intention was always … just to kill.
“Perhaps, above all, they were committed in the coldest of blood.”
Auty said Hancock had left his mother’s house with the knives, but returned shortly after to “share a cup of tea with his mother one last time, as if it was his way of saying goodbye to her.”
He took both landlines with him, the court heard, and tried unsuccessfully to find his mother’s cell phone to prevent her from calling the police.
But the killer’s mother dialed 999 once he left at 4.11 in the morning and said, “Please, you have to go. She has been with another man. My son found out on Friday night. Now he has two knives and he’s on his way. “
Auty said the operator had “tried to persuade her to phone Helen and let her know, but she had no idea what he would say.”
Judge Nimal Shant QC said she “could not be sure” that the injuries sustained by Hancock’s estranged wife were the result of “sadistic or sexual conduct.”
The judge added: “This was substantially premeditated and planned in advance. You had decided your intention to kill them both before leaving your mother’s house.
“What you did that night has deprived two families of the people they love and no sentence I impose on them will seem appropriate and nothing I do can fill the undoubted void left in their lives by the deaths of Helen Hancock and Martin Griffiths .
“Your actions that night left your three children without a mother and Martín’s family without a son and his children without a father.”
Defense attorney Clive Stockwell QC said: “The impact of your crime on New Year’s Day has damaged the lives of many people.
“He is well aware of the fact that with his actions he has deprived his own children of their mother’s presence for the rest of their lives knowing … that it was their father who inflicted that grief on them.
“Some of the comments he made at the scene and in the interview were embarrassing.
“As agonizing as this crime has been, it does not deserve the imposition of a life sentence.”
