An ‘obsessed’ man who stabbed to death his ex girlfriend because he could not accept their relationship was over has been jailed for 25 years.
Contolling Adedapo Adegbola, 40, stabbed Stephanie Iron’s in the neck after entering her home when she stepped out to take her bins out after work.
Ms Irons, a university student 17 years his junior, suffered a ‘devastating’ injury to her neck in the attack in October last year, a court heard.
Adegbola then sat on the aspiring psychologist’s sofa and used her phone to send sexually explicit messages to her work colleagues and friends in a bid to ‘humiliate’ her.
The former adult support worker was jailed for life at Nottingham Crown Court on Thursday after admitting murder. He was told he will serve a minimum of 25 years.
He wept Ms Iron’s mother Donna Fox described her daughter’s ‘compassionate and caring’ nature.
Prosecutor Peter Joyce KC said: ‘This is the deliberate killing of a woman who had spurned him.
‘It is the prosecution case he had become obsessed with that woman and could or would not accept the relationship with her was over.’
Stephenie Irons’ mother said of her daughter: ‘Steph was my world, and my best friend’
The court heard the pair, who worked together, had been in a relationship for a short time before Miss Irons, 23, ended it over Adegbola’s ‘controlling’ behaviour.
Mr Joyce said it was ‘clear he was bitter at the ending of the relationship, and acting rather oddly about it.’
Describing the day of the ‘pre-planned’ killing, he told how Adegbola left work at around 5pm, with Miss Irons leaving 20 minutes later.
Mr Joyce said she arrived back at her flat at 5.49pm, before her former boyfriend got out of a taxi a short distance away just minutes later.
He told the court CCTV showed Adegbola using the toilet at a commercial premises next door then entering Miss Irons’ home and spending an hour and 50 minutes inside – locking the door from the outside as he left.
In that time, he had used a knife he had bought at a B&M Bargains store five days earlier to murder Ms Irons.
The prosecutor said the alarm was raised by Emily Summers, a colleague of Miss Irons, who called police just after 10.30pm to say she was concerned for her safety.
He told the court: ‘This was having seen messages from her phone, which she believed had been accessed by this defendant. She was right, it had.
‘As a result of seeing those messages, Miss Summers went with a colleague to Miss Irons’ home where they found her car, the house with lights on, and the door locked.
‘She was aware of a previous relationship between the pair, and tensions relating to the end of that relationship.
‘They tried to contact her, and this defendant, but there was no response when they knocked on her door, so they called the police.’
Mr Joyce said officers arrived and looked through a rear window, where they saw Miss Irons lying on the floor covered in blood.
Paramedics soon arrived but there was ‘nothing they could do’, and she was pronounced dead at 11.06pm.
She had ‘defensive’ wounds to her arms and an injury to her neck which had severed her jugular vein and was the cause of death, said Mr Joyce.
He added that Adegbola’s bloody footprints found on the carpet of Miss Irons’ ‘immaculately kept’ home suggested he had sat on the sofa ‘adjacent to where she lay dead or dying’.
Then, as a ‘final humiliation’, he used her phone to send explicit messages to her friends and work colleagues.
After leaving the flat, Adegbola was captured on CCTV wiping Miss Irons’ blood off the knife, using it to cut himself in a nearby alleyway, then throwing it into a bush.
He also took her keys and phone, which he discarded, before visiting a number of different locations across the north and midlands, and surrendering himself the next day.
Mr Joyce said he told officers he was ‘responsible for Miss Irons’ injuries’, but made no comment when he was interviewed.
In a heart-rending victim impact statement that she read to the court herself, Ms Fox, said: ‘My job was to raise, love and protect her. I failed to do the latter, and I am so sorry.
‘Steph was my world, and my best friend. We had a fantastic relationship, two peas in a pod. She was my grasshopper, and I was her sensei.’
Mrs Fox, a former police officer, said she had ‘no words’ to describe her feelings relating to how her daughter died in ‘such a horrific way’, adding: ‘Each night I pray I won’t wake up, because the pain is all consuming.
‘I have the same nightmare over and over. I feel sick at the thought of never seeing her again. This is an indescribable pain, and emptiness. I can never escape the thoughts and torture of her final moments.
‘She always saw good in people. She never judged, and only saw a person, not a race, colour or belief. She had such a kind heart.
‘As a parent, I will never get to see the usual milestones. I will never see her marry, or have children. It has all bee cruelly taken away, and for what? It is so senseless.
‘She had achieved so much. We were so proud of her. She was supposed to be applying for her Doctorate last October. All she wanted to be a psychologist
‘My life is a prison of loss, despair, and longing, which has no time limit.’
Miss Irons’ stepfather, James Fox, said in his statement: ‘Steph was always a happy, loving and caring child, and that continued into her adult life.
‘It was no surprise she chose a career path in psychology, where she could help others in need.
‘We were told this had happened in Steph’s flat which filled us with guilt because we had helped her find it a few months earlier.
‘She wasn’t happy in her old flat. I thought she was safer and happier in this place. How wrong was I?
‘Our pain is unimaginable, and our grief will be everlasting.’
Sentencing Adegbola, Judge Nirmal Shant KC told him it was ‘plain’ he was not prepared to accept Miss Irons ending their relationship.
She added: ‘Those around you became increasingly concerned about it, and the level of obsession you wre showing towards her
‘I take view you plainly planned killing over a number of days
‘You have heard the impact that has had on those close to her. What you did on that day was to take the life of a young woman who was compassion, accomplished, and whose only fault was she loved you at one time
‘The devastation you have caused to her mother, stepfather and others is profound.
‘She was in the prime of her life, and your actions took the future from her.
‘You killed her because she attempted to end your relationship. She was attacked in her own home where she was entitled to feel safe. You sought to humiliate her after killing her by sending messages to her work colleagues
‘You left her dead or dying and locked her in her own home.’