“Cruel and evil monster” Andrew Munro spied on his cheating wife by remotely controlling her phone to take videos before stabbing her 51 times, the ECHO can reveal.
Jealous husband Munro, 51, used his IT expertise to monitor Clare Munro’s movements and placed a tracking device on her car during a “sinister and terrifying” campaign of surveillance after discovering she was having an affair with an old flame.
The court heard 47-year-old Clare, who lived with her husband of 16 years in Culcheth, near Warrington, would be using her computer only to be greeted by a pop-up box on the screen stating “I know what you are doing.”
Today, Munro was jailed for life with a minimum term of 26 years at Preston Crown Court after pleading guilty to the 47-year-old’s murder.
He also admitted one charge of grievous bodily harm against another victim who cannot be identified for legal reasons.
The court heard Munro also had extra-marital affairs, and had been convicted of criminal damage in 1995 after a row with his ex-wife.
A statement from the mum-of-three’s devastated family, many of whom sat in the public gallery during the hearing, described her as a “magical person.”
The family said: “Clare’s untimely death was premeditated by a cruel and evil monster, who until this day has tried to control not only Clare throughout her life but events surrounding and leading up to the trial. He feels no remorse or regret.
“His selfishness and indifference is no more than contempt for the life he has cruelly snubbed out, and for the family that he has destroyed.”
Munro, who the court heard has “autistic traits,” cynically delayed proceedings by trying withdraw his guilty plea, which was rejected.
On Sunday, November 2, 2014, Munro plunged an eight-inch kitchen knife into his wife with “extreme force” as she begged for life.
She suffered knife wounds to her heart, lungs, stomach, liver, spine and limbs in the attack, some of which passed completely through her body. Prosecution counsel John McDermott, QC, warned the public gallery as a chilling 999 call, made from the house, was played to the court.
During the recording, Clare could be heard “I am dying, I am dying” as other witnesses screamed in the background.
The defendant’s voice, sounding even and calm, was heard saying: “I’m really sorry – but you know what you have done to me.”
Several loud thuds were also audible, which the prosecution claimed were the sounds of Munro stabbing his wife’s lifeless body.
Mr McDermott told the court: “There had been problems between the defendant and his wife for a number of months.
“The marriage was breaking down and despite efforts to keep it alive, there was persistent arguing and resentment, particularly in the weeks leading up to the Sunday of her death.”
The court heard, despite her unhappiness with the marriage, Clare told Munro she would leave her boyfriend and attempt to patch things up.
The pair attempted to undergo counselling with support service Relate, although Munro secretly recorded the initial session.
Clare Munro who was murdered by her husband Andrew Munro
The court heard he had installed software on her phone to enable him to take pictures and videos and even made a “scurrilous” complaint to police claiming Clare and her boyfriend were planning to kill him.
The day before the murder, Clare phoned her lover and said she had told Munro their marriage was over, and that he “didn’t take it well.”
On the day of her death, Munro asked Clare to discuss the relationship in the kitchen of their house in Chiltern Road.
But the court heard he started screaming and charged at the victim “without warning.”
Mr McDermott said: “He began a savage assault upon her, stabbing her with great force in the chest and body. It was very sudden and very rapid.”
The court heard she begged for her life, prompting a pause in the attack in which Munro appeared to calm down.
But according to the surviving victim, who lost the tip of her finger in the attack, he then “roared” and rushed back towards his wife, stabbing her again.
The court heard despite her fatal wounds Clare showed “astonishing fortitude” to prevent Munro from killing the witness.
John Butterfield, QC, defending Munro, said: “His marriage was deteriorating, and he was making efforts to save it by going to Relate among other examples, and not only to save his marriage but also to maintain his job, and all this in the context of a deteriorating mental state.”
He said Munro’s “autistic traits” and “rigid thinking” meant it would be difficult for him to cope with the deterioration of his marriage.
But Judge Mr Justice Turner, QC, said: “There is no evidence, is there, that someone who falls within the autistic personality disorder spectrum is more likely to commit violent crime?”
Passing sentence, he said: “During the weeks before the murder you subjected her to a terrifying campaign of sinister and intrusive surveillance. You used your expertise as a computer programmer to spy on her with various devices.
“You made your wife’s final weeks almost unbearable.”
Detective Inspector Steve Jones, from Cheshire Police, said: “As well as the loss of Clare, her family have been made to wait for justice through Munro’s continued manipulative and controlling behaviour and attempts to avoid justice.
“Our thoughts are with the family who have been incredibly brave through this distressing time and I can only hope that the sentence today will bring them some sense that justice has been done for her.”
Source: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/