Mum of murdered Abi Fisher demands answers from her killer husband during court appearance

Matthew Fisher was given a life sentence with a minimum of 15 years after he admitted killing the 29-year-old at their Castleford home on Walton Park Street and dumped her body in a layby 12 miles away.

Despite pleading guilty, he has failed to provide an explanation for beating her and then killing her.

He had tried to cover up the evidence and told her family and friends, and the police, that she simply disappeared in the night.

However, ANPR cameras caught his car leaving the area and telephone mast signals pinpointed his exact movements, even to where he dumped her body in undergrowth near Hemsworth.

The 30-year-old spent the sentencing hearing at Leeds Crown Court on Thursday with his head in his hands.

Abi’s mother, 60-year-old Andrea Richardson, bravely read out an impact statement and ordered Fisher to look at her saying: “Please look at me and show me some respect.”

He did momentarily, before putting his head back in his hands.

Fighting back tears, she continued: “We treated you like a son and you lied to our faces.

"You had killed our baby girl and dragged her through the undergrowth. How could you do that to my baby girl?

"She loved life and she loved you Matthew.

"I don’t manage to get through a day without crying for her. I still pick up my phone to ring her, but end up on the floor crying because I forget that I am never going to be able to speak to her again.

"You have ripped out my heart. We are in this black hole with no light in sight.

"What could have possibly caused you to do this?

"I can’t think of anything bad enough in your marriage to do what you did. I want to know why.”

In a statement read out by prosecutor James Lake on behalf of her father, 63-year-old Mick Richardson, he said: "As a family we never thought for a moment that you would harm Abi. You threw her away like garbage.

"Your actions in disposing of Abi will never be forgiven or forgotten.”