Cop Faked Fiancee Claire Howarth’s Death in Car Crash
AN English policeman who killed his fiancée, a fellow officer, and tried to claim she died in a car accident has been jailed for 18 years.
Martin Forshaw, 27, dramatically changed his mind and pleaded guilty to killing 31-year-old Claire Howarth, on the day his trial was due to start at Manchester Crown Court, The Sun reports.
He was told he would serve a minimum of 18 years before he would be considered for release.
Forshaw bludgeoned his girlfriend at least five times with a hammer just hours before they were due to fly out for their wedding on the Caribbean island of St Lucia - which was to take place five days later.
The defendant then carried her downstairs at their home in Tottington, north of Manchester, in the early hours of May 7 this year and took her to her BMW car.
Prosecutor Ray Wigglesworth QC said Forshaw drove around secluded country lanes in the area before he staged a bogus road accident and called the emergency services.
Forshaw placed Howarth, who was still alive, in the driver’s seat and using his foot on the accelerator sat beside her and crashed the vehicle into a hedge.
When police and paramedics arrived at the scene, Forshaw told them his fiancée had not been wearing a seatbelt.
She was rushed to a hospital where she was pronounced dead later that day.
Sentencing Forshaw, Justice David Clarke said: “This was a brutal killing. Whatever immediately led up to it, you struck Claire Howarth at least five times to and around the head with a very heavy and dangerous instrument, designed to strike very hard blows.”
The court was told that Forshaw was “torn” between his emotions for his fiancée and another woman, the mother of his young son and that he told her the wedding was off just shortly before he struck her with the mallet.