UK Court Jails Man for Life for Killing Woman Boss
A man who brutally stabbed his boss to death and wrote "bully" on her forehead has been jailed for life and ordered to serve at least 28 years by a British court.
London, May 3 (PTI) A man who brutally stabbed his boss to death and wrote "bully" on her forehead has been jailed for life and ordered to serve at least 28 years by a British court.
David Browning, 52, was found guilty of murder at Hove Crown Court yesterday, the BBC reported today.
He stabbed Jillian Howell in the chest, neck and abdomen, leaving her with 15 stab and slash wounds in October.
Browning had formed an intense attachment to the 46-year-old Brighton university payroll boss, the court was told.
The court was informed that he had gone to her house for dinner and reacted with anger when she rejected him.
Sentencing Browning, Judge Christine Laing said the way in which Browning murdered her was "savage", adding: "This was a sustained attack and the terror and trauma for her in the final few minutes of her life is unimaginable."
She said Browning "defiled" her body by writing the word "bully" on her forehead but added: "Nothing was further from the truth."
"The reality of Jillian Howell is that she was a compassionate woman, a quality that cost her her life," she said.
The judge said Browning had developed a crush that turned into an obsession.
She told him: "I am quite satisfied that what led to you killing her was a very ordinary cocktail of human emotions, desire, jealously, frustration and anger."
This was illustrated in his vitriol towards Howell's close friend Sean McDonald, who he tried and failed to frame for the killing, she added.
"I have watched you closely during this trial and you have shown no emotion and little remorse other than for your own situation."
Browning had claimed he and Howell clashed when they first started working together in 2015, but then became friends.
In the months before the killing, Browning applied for a firearms licence, bought a shotgun and knife, hired a van, deleted messages and data on his phone and took a change of clothes to the crime scene.
The court heard the pair shared a curry and then he stabbed her.
After the killing, he posted a cartoon on Facebook with the slogan "stand up to bullies, then kill them".
When he handed himself in to police, the father-of-two claimed it was manslaughter by diminished responsibility.
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