A man who strangled his estranged wife with a bootlace has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 23 years and four months.
Michael McDaid, 60, pleaded guilty to the murder of Rachel McDaid, 53, whose body was found by their son at her home in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire on 19 April.
Addressing McDaid at a sentencing hearing on Friday, Stuart Rafferty KC said: “Even now, I am not sure you have any idea just how much harm you have caused. [Rachel] did not deserve to die. For no reason at all you destroyed somebody else’s life. There is a wholesale lack of remorse.”
The couple married in 1998 and had three sons now aged 18, 21 and 23. They had become estranged in recent years and lived separately, but McDaid would often return to the family home to see their children and collect his work tools.
On 19 April he arrived at the house at 9.30am, when Rachel was alone, and strangled her with a lace from his walking boots that he had fashioned into a garotte.
He then locked all the doors and left the house. He returned a few minutes later to find one of his sons trying to gain access to the property, and told him: “You can’t go in the house because I’ve killed her.”
The son used a ladder to climb in through a bathroom window, while McDaid drove away in his van and called the police and told them: “I have killed my wife.”
The prosecutor James Varley told the court: “There is nothing to suggest [Rachel] had any opportunity to fight back and when he was arrested he had no injuries on him.”
The couple’s eldest son, Owen, faced his father in court to read a victim impact statement in which he said he was “truly ashamed to have ever called you my dad”, Nottinghamshire Live reported.
“You had everything in life – a beautiful home, a beautiful wife, three children – and that has gone because you are selfish,” he said. “You have ruined every single childhood memory I have of you.
“I am looking at you but you won’t look at me and answer the one question I want to know the answer to. Why? How can you kill an innocent woman as beautiful as her, your wife? I hope you can see the pain you have caused to everyone. The man sitting here today is not my dad, he’s a monster.”
Clive Stockwell KC, mitigating, read to the court a letter McDaid had written in which he said: “I spent 25 years with my wife who I loved with all my heart. I have three amazing sons who I also love with all my heart and I committed the most awful offence possible.
“I could not escape my mental health or see any other way out, and I know I made the wrong choice. I have destroyed so many lives and what I did was unforgivable. I pray to God every day for forgiveness.”
The judge said: “To say you had no alternative than to kill her is frankly ludicrous. There was no justification for her death and no history of her treating you as the victim. All of this was in your own warped mind.”
In a statement, Rachel’s family described her as “the most beautiful, selfless and strongest woman”.
They said: “There are not enough words to describe how much we loved her and how much she is missed. She put 100% into motherhood and adored her three boys. As a family, we were devastated to hear the brutal way in which she was taken, especially by someone she spent more than half her life with and who she loved.”
