Man Jailed For Murder Of Mum In Front Of Child

A drug dealer who murdered Leighann Duffy in front of a young child has been jailed for a minimum of 26 years and six months.

Lloyd Byfield, 48, pursued a relationship with the 26-year-old before arming himself with a claw hammer and a knife and smashing his way into her flat in Walthamstow, London, last September.

After pleading guilty to murder at the Old Bailey, he was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 26-and-a-half years by Judge Nicholas Cooke - who told him he may never be released.

He told Byfield he must have had a "heart of stone" to have killed Ms Duffy in front of a young girl who was herself attacked when she tried to intervene.

Judge Cooke also expressed his "unhappiness" at the failure of authorities to deport Byfield to his home country of Jamaica after he attacked another woman with a chisel and was jailed for 30 weeks for burglary in 2005.

He said the murder could have been prevented if he had been sent back then.

The court heard Byfield, of no fixed abode, burst into the victim's living room and stabbed her 14 times before she managed to stagger next door clutching a wound to her neck. She died in hospital two days later.

A six-year-old child who witnessed the attack suffered minor injures but did not need hospital treatment.

Byfield fled but was arrested days later after he stopped a police community support officer in Walthamstow High Street saying he was wanted by the police.

He told the officer: "I've done it, I'm not going to fight it. When you love someone, you are not supposed to hurt them but love can make you do stupid things. I think the devil came into my head."

But Judge Cooke told Byfield: "That's not love. Love is caring and cherishing. This was obsessive, possessive brutality, mirroring a wholly wrong attitude to women.

"This is the pinnacle of domestic violence, a scourge that affects the life of women and children."

The court heard Byfield was convicted of cannabis dealing in Jamaica before he came to Britain some time between 1999 and 2005.

He was granted leave to remain in the UK after he married a woman in 2002, despite continuing a relationship with his then girlfriend.

But after he attacked a woman and was involved in a violent burglary, officials ordered his deportation in 2007 - but that never happened.

Judge Cooke said: "You were to be deported but for reasons that have never been explained to me, that was never actioned and you remained here able to kill an innocent woman."

In a victim impact statement, Ms Duffy's mother Ann Kerr described her daughter as a "happy joyous woman".

"The day Lloyd Byfield broke into Leighann's house and attacked and murdered her completely ripped our family apart and our family will never be the same again," she said.

As an impassive Byfield was sent down, a member of Ms Duffy's family shouted "scumbag, I hope you rot in hell".