Seventeen years jail for murdering wife's GP lover in a jealous rage

Andrew Hill, 49, had denied murdering Dr Colin Shawcross, but a jury convicted him after hearing how he bludgeoned his love rival to death with a pickaxe handle in a jealous rage.

Hill, a telecommunications engineer, had led a normal life until his wife Julie, a 47 year-old nurse and mother of one, met Colin Shawcross when he began working with her at Sheffield's Royal Hallamshire Hospital.

The court heard that when the affair came to light, Hill tried to win his wife back, but failed. Later, he went to the house being rented by the GP, killed him and then set about concealing his crime.

After carrying out the murder at the house in Aston, Sheffield, Hill put the body in the boot of the GP's red Jaguar and drove it to woods in nearby Harthill, digging a five-foot deep grave.

He was arrested almost immediately after the killing and charged with murder, but refused to assist in a five-month search for the body and said he had hired Irish "hardmen" to carry out an attack.

Mr Justice Wilkie told Hill he would go to prison for life, with a minimum term of 17 years and said he had acted in a "devious, vengeful, cowardly and unmanly way" over the affair.

Hill gasped and clung to the glass screen of the dock as he was being sentenced. When the judge described his story of gipsy hardmen as "utter fabrication" he shouted: "It wasn't sir".

Before sentencing, Colin Shawcross's wife Carol, also a GP, read a personal statement to the court, describing how she and her three sons, James, 30, Edward, 27, and Richard, 25, had suffered.

She said since her husband's "violent premature death" it had been a "traumatic and difficult" time for the family and added: "It has brought indescribable distress and misery which has been compounded by the concealment of his body."

Mrs Shawcross said she had been forced to take a prolonged period of sick leave for the first time in her career, and revealed that before the murder she hoped she would be reunited with her husband.

She said: "Although we were temporarily separated, we had discussed his return to the family home and I feel that given time we would have been reunited.

"His murder has robbed me of the companionship, contentment and security that Colin and I had planned in retirement."

She added that her husband's murder had profoundly affected their three sons. Dr Shawcross had provided a "compass" for James' professional career and a "soundboard".

Edward, a teacher, was especially close to his father. He was aggrieved he had to plan his wedding without Dr Shawcross and it marred what should have been a "joyous" occasion.

Richard relied heavily on his father's advice and his dad would not live to see him complete his law exams.

The doctor had missed out on being a grandfather, and his "frail and elderly" mother had also been badly affected by his violent death.

Before the affair, Hill had lived with his wife in the village of Woodall, near Sheffield, just a couple of miles from the privately-owned Loscar Wood, where he disposed of the body.

Speaking after the sentence, Paul Leonard, who led the search for the body, said Hill had been taken out of prison several times by investigating officers, but had never guided them to the burial site.

Officers hit on a vital clue after realising that a wheelbarrow was missing from Hill's house. They searched as far away as Clumber Park, near Worksop, before discovering it in the Harthill wood and linking it to the murder

The judge said Hill had been done a "great wrong" by his wife and Colin Shawcross, but said he had exercised "considerable skill" in hiding the body and described that as an "unnecessary and selfish piece of cruelty."

Det Supt Mick Mason, who led the inquiry into the death said he and the family were satisfied with the sentence and added: "It was a vicious attack and Hill gave us no help at all at any stage."