Advertisement

Esack Hairdresser Murder: Husband Gets Life

Esack Hairdresser Murder: Husband Gets Life

A "controlling" former policeman who stabbed his estranged wife to death at her hair salon has been jailed for life - with a minimum 28-year term.

Ivan Esack planned the killing "to the minute" before he knifed Natalie Esack up to 11 times because he could not cope with her being with someone else, said the judge at Maidstone Crown Court.

Friends and relatives of Mrs Esack broke into applause after Judge Charles Byers handed down the sentence.

In the period before the killing, Esack told his estranged wife, 33, she was a "dead woman walking" and added: "Tick tock, tick tock."

The 20cm (8in) blade bent and the tip broke off under the ferocity of the attack at Esack Hair and Beauty in High Street, Ashford, Kent, on April 30 last year.

After the stabbing, Esack, 38, turned to her colleague Chelsea Ford, then 17, and said: "She deserved it, the b****."

The judge said Esack had "cut down and killed" his victim while she was in the prime of her life, and had shown no remorse for his actions.

Judge Byers told him: "Not only did you take her precious life but in doing so you devastated the lives of so many around her.

"You had previously made her life a misery, subjecting her to repeated physical and verbal abuse. And yet she never offered you any malice, not of any sort."

The judge said Mrs Esack decided to leave her husband after considerable threats.

He said: "You are a controlling man and the only way that you could continue to control her life was to take it from her. You had no other intention that day other than to kill her. This was a calculated, premeditated killing planned to the minute."

On Friday, the ex-Kent Police detective constable turned aspiring football agent, of Ashford, was found guilty of murder following a three-week trial .

After his conviction, questions were asked about whether police missed opportunities to protect Mrs Esack from him.

It emerged she had spoken to police four times about the abusive former policeman, from 2009 to just a month before she was murdered.

According to police, Mrs Esack was unwilling to support a prosecution and failed to return phone calls and attend meetings because she did not want to harm his prospects.

No referral was made to the police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission , about the previous contact between the force and Mrs Esack and no disciplinary issues were found.

The case is now the subject of an independently chaired, multi-agency review which will report next month.