A controlling boyfriend who stabbed his girlfriend 54 times with two knives after wrongly accusing her of cheating on him has today been jailed for life.
Ian Bennett launched a ferocious attack on mother-of-two Kerry Woolley and then roped his mother into a 'cowardly' plot to hide his sickening crime.
Bennett, 38, of Solihull, was found guilty of murdering 38-year-old Ms Woolley by a jury at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday.
His mother, Lynda Bennett, 63, also of Moordown Avenue, was found guilty of assisting an offender and doing an act intended to pervert the course of justice.
The jury took less than an hour to reach their verdicts on the pair and were sentenced today.
Judge Melbourne Inman QC says the attack on Kerry Woolley was 'extreme' violence and that Ian Bennett carried out a 'sustained attack'.
He told Lynda she acted out of 'misguided but genuine love' for her son but that she failed to show remorse for her crime.
Ms Woolley, described as a 'beautiful soul' and 'warm personality' in the wake of the tragedy, was found dead at her home in Olton, Solihull, on July 12, last year.
Controlling boyfriend Ian Bennett stabbed his girlfriend Kerry Woolley (pictured) 54 times in the neck in a paranoid attack after wrongly accusing her of sleeping with another woman
The court heard Bennett (pictured) launched the attack at a home in Solihull in July last year
She was stabbed after Bennett, described in court as acting in a 'paranoid, obsessive and controlling way', had accused her of sleeping with a woman they met at a Solihull wine bar.
Caroline Goodwin QC, prosecuting, said the defendant would not let the matter go and they had an argument during which he threw her phone at the TV.
She said the attack on the victim was 'brutal and deliberate' with the majority of the injuries inflicted on her neck area.
She said there was evidence of defensive
