A Mayhill, Swansea man will serve at least 18 years jail time over the brutal murder of his partner after years of recurrent assault and terror in their home in Wales.
The offender Jonathan Campbell, 37, pleaded guilty to murder at Swansea Crown Court after he had "snapped" upon accusing his partner of five years, Helen Bannister, 48, of "cheating" on him.
Campbell then allegedly headbutted Bannister at the Waun-Wen Road home they shared in Mayhill, beating her into a state of unconsciousness before he stripped and bathed her to clean up the gory crime scene.
Campbell proceeded to abandon the dying woman on the couch in the house and penned a note apologizing for the savage attack instead of promptly calling for immediate medical attention.
According to police, the defendant eventually called 999, nonchalantly telling the operator that his partner was "outers" on the sofa after hitting her, requesting for an ambulance to come to her aid.
Emergency services then rushed to the Waun-Wen Road address and found Bannister unresponsive. The mother of two was airlifted to the hospital for treatment.
The court noted that after knocking his partner out, Campbell bought himself two bottles of wine at the local Londis shop before meeting his friend Paula Saunders to book a place at a Premier Inn hotel.
The night of the brutal attack, the pair strolled around the city center and marina area drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis before police located and captured Walker just before 11:30 p.m.
According to police, Campbell's remorseless response upon the arrest was: "I done what I done, so I will deal with it," Wales Online noted.
Five days later, the victim never regained her consciousness and succumbed to her brain injuries following the assault.
BBC reported that she had sustained swelling and bleeding of the brain, a nasal fracture, a fractured eye socket, fractured ribs, and a collapsed lung, according to the post-mortem report.
Handing out the sentence, Swansea Crown Court Judge Paul Thomas QC has told Campbell that he had committed a "drunken, ferocious, sustained, and merciless assault" on his partner.
"You then left her unconscious, alone, without help and you left her dying. You prioritized buying yourself two bottles of wine [and] then met up with another woman," Thomas said.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Bannister's daughters Sarah Jane Bannister and Stacey Harris testified against Walker, saying that the long-standing domestic abuse left their mother critically injured and sent to the hospital multiple times.
Harris held that Walker had always been violent and abusive towards her mother and it had damaged their relationship with Bannister, who refused to leave the abusive man for good. They argued that the man had stolen their future with their mother.
Last year, Walker was charged with causing grievous bodily harm after a serious assault against Bannister on December 1, leaving the woman in a critical condition in hospital, Wales247 reported.
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