UK man murders teenage mother
A UK man who strangled the teenage mother of his child has been sentenced to a minimum of 16 years in jail.
Britain's Daily Mail reports Callum Willcocks was convicted of murder after strangling 17-year-old Kelsey Shaw in an alcohol-fuelled rage.
The newspaper reports Miss Shaw was 12 and Willcocks 14 when they started dating in Liverpool and the couple were expecting their first child within a year.
Willcocks was a heavy drinker and had been thrown out of ten schools which could not cope with his 'extreme anger problems'.
A UK court heard Willcocks had been using cocaine and high-strength cannabis which he paid for by car theft and burglary.
In 2008 he was sentenced to three years detention for supplying crack cocaine and heroin which the newspaper reports fuelled his suspicion that his partner had been unfaithful to him.
Saying he could not face their child being raised by another man, he wrote on MySpace that he hoped she would have a nice Christmas 'cus i no i wil of bin away n kiled meself by then'.
He attempted to take a drug overdose and later tried to hang himself with his bed sheets, but was rescued by prison staff.
On his release in 2010, the relationship continued and Mr Willcocks got a job at a skip hire firm which helped him afford a drug habit which had spiralled to spending £1,600 on cocaine every weekend with friends.
'When it was good it was brilliant, but when it was bad it was absolutely terrible,' Willcocks told Chester Crown Court, admitting he had slept with Miss Shaw's cousin.
Miss Shaw fell pregnant again but had an abortion and called off the relationship, saying she was seeing a man called Roy.
After threatening to hang himself by the River Mersey the couple had an evening at a friend's flat on April 28.
Miss Shaw was drinking alcopops while Willcocks drank vodka on top of about eight cans of lager he had drunk earlier in the day.
The following day, he told the court, she accused him of being an 'alkie' and he held her neck until she passed out.
When she came round, he said she taunted him, saying neither their daughter nor her aborted baby had been his.
'I was filling up with anger and I couldn't hold it any more,' he told the court.
'I just exploded.' He strangled her again, leaving her lying unconscious, and she died in hospital the following day.
He told police: 'I wanted her to die. I felt she had to get out of my life. If I was sober it probably wouldn't have even entered my mind. But I was off my head big time.' The jury took just an hour to reject the 19-year-old's plea of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
Kelsey's mother Patricia, who is looking after the couple's daughter said she accepted the sentence.
"All I know is he can never hurt my beautiful girl any more," she said.
"Kelsey's death devastated the whole family and has left a huge hole in our lives. To have her taken away from us so suddenly is something we have all struggled to deal with, but we have had to stay strong for her little girl who has been left without a mummy."
