Bronwhills Dad Handed Life For Daughter's Murder

2 October 2018, 12:47 | Updated: 2 October 2018, 12:48

William Billingham has been handed a life sentence, after being found guilty of his daughter's murder.

The 55 year-old stabbed Mylee Billingham once in the chest with severe force before causing himself stomach wounds as police arrived at his bungalow in Brownhills, near Walsall, in January.

He'll now serve at least 27 years in prison.

Prosecutors alleged that Billingham acted out of a desire for "revenge" against his ex-partner, Tracey Taundry, after she began a same-sex relationship.

Jurors deliberated for around 80 minutes on Monday before unanimously convicting Billingham of murder and a separate charge of making a threat to kill 34-year-old Miss Taundry.

Opening the case at the start of the trial, prosecutor Karim Khalil QC said of the killing: "It was swift, deliberate, clinical, brutal. It was not some manic unfocused assault.

"This was no accident and it was not a slight injury - it was a deep, violent thrust of a lethal weapon into the most vulnerable part of his young daughter's body."

The jurors who convicted Billingham were not told he had cut his wrists in his cell - using razor blades - part-way through his trial.

Billingham underwent surgery after the apparent attempt to end his own life in the early hours of September 21 - a day after his trial was shown CCTV footage of his daughter in a shop on the night he killed her.