After cycling 18 miles from Newark and stopping along the way for a pasty, killer John Jessop cut the throat of mum-of-three Clair Ablewhite at her home in Colston Bassett, and cycled home. From hundreds of hours of CCTV and dash cam footage, Nottinghamshire Police officers meticulously pieced together the journey of murderer Jessop, who brazenly set out from Newark on his push bike to speak to his former partner, Clair, who did not wish to continue their relationship.
She was found by her 75-year-old father, Graham Tinkley, dead on the floor of her cottage. "To this day I wake up in the night; panic attacks. I see Clair in my dreams. I see blood gushing from her throat trying to resuscitate her dead body," he told Nottingham Crown Court, in Jessop's sentencing hearing.
After the senseless killing shocked the small tight-knit community, where Mrs Ablewhite had lived for six weeks, Jessop went on to plead guilty to her murder at a Nottingham Crown Court hearing in October, and, on Wednesday, (January 4), he was jailed for the most cruel act of all - taking an innocent person's life.
