Grimsby stabbing: 'Most harrowing case' for top detective

Det Supt Chris Kelk was in the hospital when doctors performed an emergency caesarean operation on Miss WIlson and saw the infant, April, who had died in the womb, being cradled in her father's arms.

Miss Wilson, 21, had been rushed into the Diana Princess of Wales Hospital in Grimsby on June 7 last year after collapsing in the street with Alan McMullan's knife embedded in her back.

The detective, one of Humberside Police's most experienced officers, admits to being in tears when she spoke to colleagues the next morning as they set about building a case against her murderer.

She said: "The image of Adam (Kennard) holding her little baby will stay with me forever. The tragic loss of life makes my stomach churn.

"On the Monday morning in the first briefing I cried and that's not like me. Everybody in the room felt like that."

She added: "It's got to be the worst case that I've experienced for the sheer human tragedy of the loss of Claire and April. It's been very emotional for all the team."

Det Supt Kelk said she was repelled by 54-year-old McMullan, of Sherwood Road, Grimsby, and that his "despicable" crime was difficult to comprehend.

"I think he's a monster, he's inhuman," she said.

"It's much easier for people to think he must be mad to be able to explain what he did. It's much more shocking to think somebody is capable of forming the intent to do that to a complete stranger. It's much harder to think somebody rational is capable of harming another human being like that.

"Alan McMullan's only motive appears to be related to the frustration at his loneliness and isolation and his wanting to get back at the world.

"The good news is it's prison and not hospital and he will serve a life sentence for what he did."

Det Supt Kelk said she had no concerns about the way McMullan had been dealt with by the medical profession,