Farmer receives life sentence for shotgun murder of estranged wife ‘in jealous rage’

A farmer has been found guilty of murdering his estranged wife with a shotgun as she sat in her Range Rover outside her home.

Andrew Hooper, 46, was ordered to serve a minimum of 31 years on Friday afternoon at Birmingham Crown Court.

He suffered severe facial injuries and lost the ability to speak after turning his shotgun on himself after the attack on Cheryl Hooper in Newport, Shropshire, in January last year.

Prosecutors had told the court that Hooper, known as Jack, had “murder in his eyes” when he deliberately shot his wife.

The Crown said he deliberately shot her in the neck from about 1.5 metres away because he was “consumed with anger and jealousy” after she left him at the end of 2017.

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Following the verdict, it emerged that Hooper was given a suspended sentence in 2004 after breaking into his first wife’s home and threatening to kill her.

Prosecutor David Mason QC told the court: “This defendant, after they had separated, broke into her house one night armed with a knife and surgical gloves, and threatened to kill her and her new partner.

“That’s the only conviction he has. He was prosecuted for aggravated burglary but in fact pleaded guilty to an affray and received a suspended sentence.”

During sentencing, Judge Mark Wall QC told Hooper: "The sentence that I must pass on you is one that you richly deserve - life imprisonment.

"This was not a spur-of-the-moment killing, it was one that you had planned in the hours leading up to it.

"This was not a last-minute decision to kill, arrived at outside Cheryl's, but rather a planned execution."