Sale man jailed for stabbing Internet lover to death (From Messenger Newspapers)

Sale man jailed for stabbing Internet lover to death

11:43am Monday 7th December 2009 in News

SALE man Trevor Ferguson, 49, has been jailed for life after he was convicted of the murder of the lover he met over an internet dating site named Smooch.

Judge John Rogers QC, sitting at Mold Crown Court on Friday, ordered that he should serve a minimum of 17 years in prison.

The jury took three hours and 45 minutes to reach their unanimous guilty verdict, rejecting his claims that he had been provoked.

Ferguson showed no emotion when the verdict was returned. During the trial, the court heard that he and Miss McGraw lived together in her house in Connah's Quay for the first half of this year and initially it was a loving relationship.

But quarrels arose and Ferguson became violent. On her 50th birthday on May 14 he assaulted her and damaged her property and he was given a conditional discharge by Wrexham magistrates.

On July 22 - the day before she was murdered - she called police to have Ferguson removed from her home. The next day she changed her Facebook status back to ‘single’ after being ‘in a relationship’ since Christmas.

The judge told Ferguson: "You tried to persuade her to allow you to return. She refused. You resented that refusal and you decided to take your revenge.”

Ferguson had told police that while he was stabbing her, Miss McGraw said ‘Trevor, I love you, why are you doing this to me?’ His reply was ‘It's too late’.

The judge told Ferguson: "You left her to die where you had caused that fatal injury. You showed her no mercy and when you were arrested later you admitted that you had intended to kill her."

There was quiet crying from the public gallery as he was led away, and someone called out "the price of love".

The IPCC is carrying out an investigation into the role of the police following her repeated calls for help.

Outside the court, daughter Kimberley said: "Our lives were devastated when our mum was brutally murdered. Her unexpected, tragic and violent death at the hands of Trevor Ferguson leaves four children, Kimberley, Hayley, Caohme and Wayne, and three grandchilldren."

The court had heard how Miss McGraw had died rapidly in a pool of blood after being stabbed three times after she ran for her life down the side of her home only to be trapped by wrought iron gates, which ironically had been locked to prevent Ferguson getting in. Ferguson claimed that he had been provoked by the fact that Miss McGraw, an alcoholic who had no contact with her four grown up children, said she loved him and wanted to start again with him one minute, but then called police to eject him the next.

He said he given up his £30,000 a year concrete laying job to be her carer, spent his last £1,000 decorating her lounge, and had paid for them both to go on holiday to Egypt for her 50th birthday, he said. He didn’t know where he was, he said.

The day before the killing Ferguson had taken an overdose. When discharged from hospital he returned to her home, but police were called and he was told to pack his bags. He drove to Sale but sent her several text messages asking her to take him back. Ferguson insisted that she would have taken him back and even told the jury that he believed that if he had not killed her, then they would be together now!

He also told the jury, which had eight women members, that women wound him up. “You know what women are like,” he said.

Ferguson claimed that he was sitting outside her home when he snapped after receiving a text message telling him it was all over.

He lost control, he said, and asked the jury to find him guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of provocation. Diminished responsibility was also suggested.

But a psychiatrist called by the defence said that there was nothing wrong with him, apart from the fact that he was sensitive to rejection.

While he accepted the stabbing, he would not accept responsibility for what he had done and blamed her for “messing him about” and former partner Annette Corrigan of Leyland in Lancashire who he said was interfering in the relationship.

Miss Corrigan told the court that she had sought out Miss McGraw on the Internet and had warned her what he was like – and said that on the day of the killing Miss McGraw had asked her for help and said she feared he would return.

The prosecution told how it was clear that Ferguson had gone looking for her with a knife on the same night and claimed that she was also in danger.

But she was in work and not at home when Ferguson waited outside her house shortly before driving to North Wales to kill Miss McGraw.

At the time Ferguson was £24,000 in debt, which he incurred long before he met Miss McGraw, but he would not accept responsibility for that.

He blamed the banks saying that they had been throwing money at him.

Prosecution barrister Andrew Thomas QC said that Miss McGraw clearly loved him – but she was torn between love on the one hand and fear on the other.

He had been violent to her in the past, he said, and she had predicted that when she ended the relationship he would be back to get him, that he would kill her, and that it would be her own funeral next.

It became clear during the trial that she had called the police, Women’s Aid and other agencies a number of times before the killing But she had refused to go into a refuge the day before she died because she had a dog and there was a no pets rule in the refuge.

An investigation has taken place by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into the handling of the case by North Wales Police and a decision is awaited.