‘Jealous' woman who murdered ex on Christmas Day jailed for minimum of 25 years
Sentencing her on Thursday in front of a packed public gallery, Judge Mr Justice Choudhury said Carless, of Haling Way in Cannock, Staffordshire, had 'destroyed the life of a young man and his family' when she fatally attacked him at his parents' home in Elm Road, Norton Canes.
On Wednesday, after around a day of deliberation, a jury of seven men and five women found her guilty of murder and possession of an offensive weapon by unanimous verdicts in relation to the fatal stabbing.
She was also found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm by a majority of 11 to one in connection with an incident in November 2024 for which she was on police bail, but was cleared of intentional strangulation in relation to the same incident.
Carless showed no reaction in the dock as Mr Justice Choudhury passed his sentence on Thursday afternoon.He said the defendant had shown 'no remorse' for what she had done and instead concocted a false story that she could not remember what had happened.
The trial was told Carless had been at the pub drinking with a male friend on December 24 before they had sex three times at his home.
She had been planning to stay the night when a female friend sent her a screenshot of Mr Price's Tinder profile at around 1.30am on Christmas Day, which sent her into what Mr Justice Choudhury called 'a jealous rage'.
Carless then left the male friend's home, took a taxi back to her house, where she picked up a kitchen knife and got another taxi to Mr Price's parents' address, where she expected to find him with a woman but he was instead in a caravan in the back garden with friends.
CCTV showed her running up the front path into the house and then 'stalking' him around the garden before he was later found with a single stab wound to the chest on the conservatory floor.
Carless had called Mr Price 45 times between 2.15am and 2.44am while she waited for the taxi to take her to the address where he had been staying since their relationship ended – only breaking up what prosecution counsel Jonas Hankin KC called the 'barrage' of calls to impatiently phone the company to check where her taxi was.
After arriving at the address, Carless asked the taxi driver to wait outside while she went into the property to stab Mr Price at around 3am.
Less than two minutes after arriving at the scene, Carless was 'anxious and sweating' as she got back into the taxi and demanded the driver take her to her parents' home, where she admitted what she had done and her stepfather called 999.
Mr Justice Choudhury said: 'Less than two minutes is all it took for you to take a life and ruin many others, including your own.'
He added that Mr Price had only been inside the house for around six seconds, which meant Carless must have stabbed him 'on sight'.
The judge said: 'The intention to kill was plain. You stabbed him in the chest, a highly vulnerable part of the body.
'Having stabbed him, you didn't stop there, you callously chased him around the garden brandishing a knife. You then fled, leaving him to die.
'You have showed no remorse for what you did, instead claiming falsely that you didn't remember.'
The judge paid tribute to the 'dignity' of Mr Price's family, who all wore 'Justice for Louis' T-shirts as they watched the sentencing.
In a victim impact statement, Mr Price's mother Eleanor said her son had been 'murdered by the woman he loved' and described him as a 'funny, beautiful man'.
She said: 'Our hearts have been ripped apart. I brought Louis into this world and I should have left before him.
'Every minute of every day, I think about my boy. He was no angel, but thanks to Kirsty, he's now my angel.
'It is thanks to Kirsty that his children no longer have a dad. How can we ever get over something like this? We never will.'
Mr Price's father Graham described him as 'my son, my fishing buddy, my best friend' and said his life had been taken by an 'act of evil'.
He said: 'Louis lost his life, she took it from him. We will never forget Louis or forgive what has happened to him.'
As Carless had been on police bail for assaulting Mr Price at the time of the fatal stabbing, Staffordshire Police made a referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, who decided not to investigate and the case was passed back to the force's professional standards department.
In a statement, Staffordshire Police said: 'A number of positive actions were taken to mitigate the risks identified, which included arresting Kirsty Carless, imposing bail conditions to prevent her from having further contact with Louis Price, them living at separate addresses, and the submission of a public protection notice for consideration at a multi-agency risk assessment conference.
'No misconduct or learning was identified and officers updated Louis's father and explained the decision.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
6 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Evil couple kill 12-year-old daughter by drugging and suffocating her
A cruel couple told police their daughter had disappeared from their family home - but it became clear they'd drugged and suffocated her, leaving her for dead on a country road To the outside world, they looked like the perfect family - Rosario Porto and her husband Alfonso Basterra were in their mid-30s when they adopted a baby girl. According to The Guardian, Punto, a lawyer from Santiago de Compostela, northern Spain, and Basterra, a journalist from the Basque Country, had had no trouble persuading local Spanish authorities that they would make good parents. The wealthy Spanish couple adopted Asunta Fong Yang as a baby, but when she was just 12 years old, she was found dead beside a country road. READ MORE: Man murdered by ex-girlfriend on Christmas Day tragically predicted his own death Porto even appeared on local television to share her wisdom and experience about adopting. At first, things were great - Asunta was so bright she skipped an academic year, and the family's privilege meant she could enjoy private classes in English, French, Chinese, ballet, violin, and piano. 'She once told us what her Saturdays were like,' Asunta's ballet teacher, an English woman named Gail Brevitt, recalled. 'She got up at 7 am, did Chinese from 8 until 10, came to ballet from 10.15 to 12.30, then did French until lunchtime. And then there was violin and piano.' To the outside world, everything looked like a dream. Carmen González, the family's cleaner and nanny, said: 'To me they seemed an idyllic family." But behind closed doors, things were far from perfect. In 2009, Porto spent two nights in a private psychiatric hospital, saying she felt suicidal, apathetic, and guilty. Then, in 2013, she and Basterra divorced after Porto lost both her parents in the preceding 18 months and admitted to having an affair. Despite their struggles, no one suspected they were capable of murdering the child they had adopted. But on September 22, 2013, Rosario Porto and Alfonso Basterra reported Asunta missing. The police record noted that Asunta had been left at her mother's apartment doing her homework at 7 pm while Porto went to the family's country house 20 minutes away. Even though there was no physical evidence, such as fingerprints or fibres, linking Porto to the girl's corpse, the police had CCTV evidence from a camera at a petrol station near her apartment. The footage showed Porto driving the family's car towards their country house with a long-haired girl sitting beside her. The timecode revealed the footage had been taken at a time when, according to Porto's versions of events, Asunta was meant to be at home. When shown the video, Porto admitted the passenger was her daughter, but claimed Asunta felt ill and was later taken home. But police noted that when they had taken her to the country house hours after the body was found, the mum rushed towards a room that contained a wastepaper basket with bits of orange baler twine inside. The twine was similar to some found next to the body, which, investigators concluded, must have been used to tie Asunta's limbs together. However, forensic scientists were unable to prove bits found on the corpse came from the house. In addition to the CCTV footage, forensic results suggested Asunta had been drugged and then smothered. Tests of Asunta's blood and urine revealed toxic levels of lorazepam – the main active ingredient in the Orfidal pills that Porto had been prescribed to help with her anxiety attacks. Meanwhile, teachers at two music academies recalled that in the months before her death, Asunta had been unable to read her sheet music or walk straight. 'I took some white powders,' she told Isabel Bello, who ran one of the academies. 'I don't know what they are giving me. No one tells me the truth,' she complained to a violin teacher. Forensic scientists tested a strand of Asunta's hair and discovered the presence of lorazepam along the first three centimetres and concluded she had also been ingesting smaller doses of the drug for three months. Investigators believed Porto murdered Asunta, but she wouldn't have been able to lift the body alone, as she was slight and only 4ft 8in tall. In October 2015, the prosecution laid out its case before a jury, claiming the couple devised a plan to kill their own daughter – though they eventually downgraded the charges against Basterra, saying he was an accomplice to his ex-wife's murder plot. Asunta, the jury was told, had somehow been made to swallow at least 27 ground-up pills – nine times as powerful as a strong adult dose – on the day she died. The judge handed Basterra and Porto 18-year sentences, as the crime was committed before a new law introduced life sentences for child murderers. Both have appealed to have their convictions overturned.
South Wales Argus
7 hours ago
- South Wales Argus
Newport drug dealer had cocaine, dirty cash, and Rolex
Graham Price appeared at Newport Crown Court charged with four offences related to drug-dealing. Price previously admitted possession with intent to supply around 1.5 kilograms of cocaine on June 3. He was also charged with three offences of possessing criminal property – relating to £81,285 in criminal cash and two Rolex watches – on that same date. The 36-year-old admitted two of the charges, relating to the cash and one Rolex, but denied the offence relating to the second watch. The case was adjourned for the Crown Prosecution Service to consider whether to seek a trial on the remaining charge. He came back before Newport Crown Court on August 1 and it was confirmed that a trial was not sought. Judge Daniel Williams adjourned the case for a pre-sentence report to be prepared. 'It is only likely to assist the judge in to how long your prison sentence is,' he warned the defendant. Price, of Farmwood Close, will return to be sentenced on September 12.
Daily Mirror
7 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Man murdered by ex-girlfriend on Christmas Day tragically predicted his own death
WARNING: DISTRESSING DETAILS. Louis Price, who was murdered by his abusive ex-girlfriend Kirsty Carless in the early hours of Christmas morning, confided in a friend about his tragic fears, mere weeks before his death Tragic Louis Price, who died at the hands of his '"manipulative, emotionally volatile, and jealous' ex, predicted 'something bad would happen' shortly before his death. The 31-year-old had suffered horrific abuse by his former girlfriend Kirsty Carless, who was this week jailed for life, of which she must serve a minimum of 25 years, after being found guilty of Louis' murder. Stafford Crown Court heard how killer Carless, 33, had already been on police bail for strangling Louis the month before she brutally murdered him, in an act "motivated by anger and jealousy and fuelled by cocaine and alcohol". Father-of-six Louis had been considered by police officers to be 'at very high risk of domestic abuse'. Following the strangulation incident on November 11, 2024, Louis had called 999, telling of how Carless had poured bleach over tracksuits worth £400 after putting them in the bin. He'd also said she'd thrown a glass candle holder at him, pulled him down the stairs, and choked him. In a harrowing witness statement, Louis described how the relationship, which began in 2021, had been 'on the whole, abusive', adding that Carless had stopped him doing things he enjoyed, such as playing football, as well as physically abusing him. Hauntingly, at a funeral held at the end of November 2024, Louis confided in his friend Demi-Louise Deakin about his on-off relationship with Carless, admitting he was 'scared of Kirsty' and feared that 'something bad would happen' if he did not leave her. Mere weeks later, he was dead. It comes after a woman, 20, was found dead on bus with 26 iPhones glued to her body. The terrible events that unfolded began on Christmas Eve 2024, an evening which Carless, from Cannock, Staffordshire, spent at the pub drinking double vodka and cokes with a male friend. She then went back to this man's house, where they had sex. It was at around 1.30 am on Christmas Day that a female friend sent Carless a screenshot of Louis' Tinder profile. Furious, Carless took a taxi back to her house, where she collected a kitchen knife. She then ordered another taxi to Louis' parents' home, where he'd been staying since the abusive relationship ended. While waiting for this second taxi, Carless called Louis repeatedly, with call records showing she rang him a total of 45 times between 2.15 am and 2.44 am. Once she arrived at his family home, Carless asked the driver to wait outside. About 20 seconds after Carless let herself into the property with a key, the driver heard a 'very loud and prolonged' scream from a man who 'sounded scared'. Disturbing CCTV footage shows Carless running up Louis' front garden path into the house before 'stalking' him around the garden. He was later found on the floor of the conservatory, with a single stab wound to the chest. Less than two minutes after they pulled up, an 'anxious and sweating' Carless got back into the taxi and demanded the driver take her back to her parents' home. It was then that she confessed what she had done, and 999 was called. Giving evidence to the trial, Carless claimed she had no recollection of stabbing Louis. Stating she was 'not a violent person' Carless told the court she'd only gone to Louis' address as she believed he'd taken money from a card she had in her home. After picking up a knife with the intent to destroy the caravan Louis had been staying in in his parents' back garden, Carless claimed she'd 'panicked' after he was stabbed and fled the scene. As well as being found unanimously guilty of murder and possessing an offensive weapon in a public place, Carless was also found guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm relating to a previous incident, but cleared of intentional strangulation.
