21 years for killer who hid body of husband in garden under grass cuttings

A WOMAN who murdered her geologist husband and hid his body in a bag in her garden must spend at least 21 years behind bars.

- By James Gamble

Maureen Rickards launched a “ferocious” attack, stabbing her husband Jeremy five times in the chest.

Two blows pierced his heart and one went through bones, the court heard.

She bought cleaning products with his bank card, dismembered his body, hid it in the garden, then claimed he had gone to Saudi Arabia.

Cuttings

The law student was arrested last July after police found the 65-year-old’s decomposing body buried under grass cuttings at her shared accommodation in Canterbury, Kent.

Sentencing Rickards, 50, to life imprisonment at Canterbury Crown Court yesterday, Mr Justice (Tim) Kerr said she had “brutally” abused her husband of 27 years both physically and mentally before his death.

Rickards appeared at court briefly via a video link from prison, but said she could not attend her sentencing as she had not yet eaten.

Addressing her in her absence, the judge told her: “Jeremy was a kind-hearted, softly-spoken, mild-mannered man who died at your hands.