Pub worker jailed for life for brutal murder of popular mum Lisa Chadderton

A popular mum sent a heartbreaking final text to her friend two days before she was brutally murdered by her partner,  a court has heard.
Lisa ChaddertonLisa Chadderton
Lisa Chadderton

Lisa Chadderton, 44, was about to open a pub in Blackpool with her partner Mark Tindill, 56 - but had texted her friend on November 25 last year saying: " I've got something to tell you, it's really important. I've made a mistake. I need to get away from him. I can't wait to speak to you - I'm not sure I've done the right thing."

Preston Crown Court heard two days later Tindill strangled and stabbed Miss Chadderton multiple times in her neck and eye in the flat above the Gillespie's Bar on Topping Street after punching her repeatedly - while her 18-year-old son and his pal were asleep.

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Tindill, who claims she had told him she had been unfaithful during a row, concealed her body in a utility room with her beloved dog Cookie, before hailing a taxi just after 3am to take him to see his son in Kent.

She was found by her young son hours later.

As he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 15 years, sobbing Tindill shouted from the dock: " I'm so sorry to Lisa and Mason."

The Honorary Recorder of Preston Judge Mark Brown said: "In a drunken, jealous rage you committed a brutal and fatal attack. "

"There is some evidence to suggest that in the short time of the relationship you endeavoured to be controlling of her and at times she felt suffocated by your attentions."

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He added: "You have deprived her of that life and you've also deprived her family of the love, affection, motherhood and companionship she would have given.

"You pleaded guilty to murder on basis there was an element of provocation after Lisa said she had been unfaithful, but that in no way can possibly justify the terrible, brutal and sustained assault you committed upon her."

The court was told Tindill had previous convictions, including for a domestic assault in which he grabbed a former partner by the throat, having read texts on her phone.

Ms Chadderton, originally from Tredegar, in South Wales, met Tindill - the former manager of the Cedar Tavetn pub in Blackpool - while working at the nearby Abingdon Street Market, where she had been employed until October last year.

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Franes McEntee said: "The fateful relationship had been quite short lived. The defendant would subsequently tell police they had been in a relationship for just three months but they had moved in together.

"They had been making preparations to open Gillespie's Bar.

"It was known the defendant had offered her son Mason a job working behind the bar at Cedar Tavern.

"It was a feature of the short relationship that he was to offer a number of members of her family employment.

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" Prior to having left her employment Miss Chadderton had worked closely with a man called Mr Chambers and she confided in him a number of aspects about the progress of their relationship.

" Miss Chadderton told him the defendant had given her money to commence divorce proceedings, had taken her shopping in Liverpool and spent a few hundred pounds on her."

But the victim then showed signs of controlling behaviour, getting angry if she did not spend time with him, and she told a friend she felt "suffocated".

On November 26 the couple had been to the Hop Inn and returned home at 2.08am.

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She had gone into her son Mason's room at around 2am and woke him ansd his friend to say good night.

In a staement he said: "She gave me hug and said she loved me and I said Ioved her."

The court heard after killing Lisa, Tindill hid her body in a utility room and put his bloodied clothes in a washing machine, before calling a cab to take him to see his children in the South, taking his cat in a cat box and a bag of takings and clothes.

Hours later people gathered at Gillespie's to continue preparing for the opening and believed neither were on the premises.

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Mason rang Tindill and asked where he was and he told him he would 'ring back in a minute'.

Lisa's bag and e-cigarette were in the living room and there were signs of a disturbance with cushions thrown off the sofa and blood on the cushions.

Mason was trying to contact her and could hear her phone ringing inside the flat.

Her pet dog could be heard snuffling behind the door and Mason discovered his mum's body in the utility room, not recognising her at first.

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Paramedics were called and found her with visible injuries and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

A post mortem examination found she had been beaten and stabbed five times in the neck and once in her left eye while still alive, then strangled with her clothing.

On the morning of November 27 Tindill phoned police in Kent giving details of the murder and was arrested at 12.15pm in his son's car returning from his daugher's in East Sussex.

He went to make a full admission telling officers: " I just flipped. I went for her.

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"A lot of it I can't remember, I was like in some kind of zone I couldn't get out of, I was so angry."

In a harrowing victim statement her mum Mandy Steed, who called Lisa the "light of her life" said: "On November 27 my life changed forever. My beautiful daughter was taken from us in the worst imaginable way."

Defending, Michael Hayton QC, said matters disclosed to him by Miss Chadderton put him in a rage.