A convicted sex offender who admitted harbouring fantasies about imprisoning and killing women has been jailed for life for the horrific rape and murder of a vet.
Clive Sharp, 46, crept into Catherine Gowing's home in the middle of the night, tied her to the bed and repeatedly raped her. He then dismembered her body and disposed of her remains in and around the river Dee in Cheshire and north Wales.
Jailing Sharp, Mr Justice Griffith Williams told him: 'This is a horrific, cold-hearted murder, carried out to gratify your perverted sexual desires.' He said Sharp would serve at least 37 years before he could be considered for parole.
Gowing, who was from the Irish Republic, settled in Wales after qualifying as a vet and lived with a friend, Jane Doyle, near Mold. Andrew Thomas QC, prosecuting, said it was Gowing's 'great misfortune' that Doyle began a relationship with Sharp, a factory worker.
On Friday 12 October last year, Gowing, 37, was at home alone because her friend was away visiting family, Thomas told Mold crown court. Sharp spent the evening with another women he was secretly seeing. He tied her to a bed but they argued over sexual acts he wanted to perform with her and he walked out leaving her trussed up. Sharp then went to Gowing's house where he bound her, raped and killed her.
The next day he bought items including bin bags, a petrol can, a hacksaw and blades. He dismembered her body and wrapped at least some of the parts in the bin bags before setting fire to Gowing's car to hide evidence. When Gowing did not turn up for work, she was reported missing and police launched a search. Her right hand, foot and torso were found by police divers. No cause of death could be established and not all the victim's remains have been recovered. Sharp was arrested within days and admitted murder last month.
