'Serial cheat' gets life for murdering his girlfriend

A "SERIAL cheat" who throttled his girlfriend when she refused to have sex with him was jailed for life for her murder yesterday.

Jason O'Malley and his partner Kerry Sneddon drew up a weekly sex rota in which he was pencilled in to have intercourse with her twice on the fatal night.

After six days of abstinence, when she was late back from work O'Malley sent her a text message asking "Do I still get two?"

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But after the couple watched the X Factor on television at their home in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, 36-year-old Miss Sneddon decided to go on her computer instead and house husband O'Malley, 40, snapped and strangled her with a ligature.

Jailing him for a minimum term of 15 years, Judge Michael Murphy told him: "You are an immature and self-obsessed individual who put your own needs and cravings before everything else."

When interviewed by police, O'Malley boasted of having slept with 300 women and having watched pornography on the fatal night.

Twice-married O'Malley, who also admitted cheating on his two ex-wives, claimed Miss Sneddon liked him to squeeze her throat during sex and her death was due to a sex game which went wrong.

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The defendant, who met his partner on the "Mingleville" computer dating site, claimed he could remember starting to have sex with Miss Sneddon on the floor, but then he blanked out and suffered amnesia. Her naked body was found in the living room and she had been strangled with a ligature.

O'Malley was found with a belt around his neck tied loosely to the staircase.

He had moved in with Miss Sneddon in July 2007 after leaving his second wife, Karen O'Malley. He told the court he cheated on his partner by having regular sex with Lisa Harrison – whom he also met on an internet dating site.

She became pregnant and when Miss Sneddon saw a copy of the baby scan in O'Malley's wallet it caused "considerable friction" between them, according to the prosecution. O'Malley kept in touch with his second wife and said they also had sex.

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He rang Mrs O'Malley after finding Miss Sneddon dead and said he had "done something stupid." She called the police.

O'Malley, an unemployed chauffeur, denied murder on November 8 last

year but the jury found him guilty.

Judge Murphy said the killing was a "wicked and cruel" attack on a "delightful, caring and vivacious young woman in the prime of her life."

After the hearing Det Supt Peter McGuinness, who led the inquiry, said the couple had two contrasting personalities.

Miss Sneddon was outgoing and a loving and caring mother while O'Malley was a possessive and jealous loner.