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Wales Online
Wales Online
National
Matthew Dresch & Kirstie McCrum

Man jailed for killing online girlfriend had been banned from seeing his own mum

A man who has been jailed for stabbing his online girlfriend to death when she travelled to the UK from Canada was previously banned from seeing his own mum, it's been revealed. Jack Sepple, 23, jailed two weeks ago for murdering his 19-year-old partner Ashley Wadsworth in his flat in Chelmsford, Essex.

But the killer was earlier slapped with a restraining order taken out by his own mother after he trashed her car in 2018. During his trial, the court heard how Sepple had eight previous convictions for 12 offences - nearly all for domestic violence.

Two of his previous partners were granted restraining orders against him, MirrorOnline reports. The Mirror has now reveal that Sepple's own mum, Tracy Dalton, 55, also had a restraining order against her son.

Essex Magistrates' Court issued the order after he damaged his mum's car in 2018. The twisted killer pleaded guilty to criminal damage after trashing the vehicle and damaging three external double-glazed windows and internal doors.

Sepple was sentenced to eight weeks in a young offender institution for the smashing spree - as he breached a suspended sentence imposed for harassing one of his previous partners. His mum's restraining order against him, which banned him from approaching her home with the threat of up to five years imprisonment, expired in July 2019.

It appears the pair patched up their relationship after his release as Mrs Dalton went on a trip with her son earlier this year. On January 18, she shared pictures from that trip on her Facebook page, showing Sepple sat down with his arm around Miss Wadsworth.

Just over two weeks later Sepple stabbed his girlfriend to death. He then called his sister on Facetime, showing her the teen's dead body.

Miss Wadsworth was found dead in Sepple's flat after he “gratuitously inflicted some 90 wounds on her body”, Judge Mr Justice Murray said. The pair originally met online when Miss Wadsworth was just 12.

The Canadian teen flew to the UK on November 12 to be with Sepple during her gap year. However, Sepple soon showed his abusive side, beating up Miss Wadsworth after he saw her looking at a picture of a naked woman on her phone.

Canadian teenager Ashley Wadsworth who was killed by Jack Semple (PA)

Miss Wadsworth told her mum the week before her death that she wanted to come home, and a flight was booked for February 3. However, Sepple stabbed her to death on February 1.

Miss Wadsworth's mother Christy Gendron previously told how her daughter was "the backbone" of the family.

She said: "People would say to me; your daughter's so nice. One would say 'she's been so good to my son'. She would always love to learn cultures, religions, languages, loved to travel - she just loved it. I call her a modern day hippy, honestly she was.

"She just loved to love people, loved to help people, she loved life, and she lived life to the fullest. I would say to her 'clean your room', she said 'mum, this is not important, I know you think it is'.

"In life, she had been living like she was going to die, for real. She's everything I wasn't, she's outgoing, she was the backbone of the three of us, I was a single mum.

"She was always the strongest one. She was fiercely loyal, she was the glue that kept everyone together. She loved holidays planning, [Hailey is] getting married now, she would have been planning it, she was so outgoing."

Mrs Dalton's husband, speaking on his wife's behalf, declined to comment.

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