GILROY:14 YEARS FOR JILTED HUSBAND WHO TRIED TO STRANGLE HIS EX-WIFE

A jilted husband who tried to strangle his ex-wife before attempting to kill himself was jailed for 14 years.

Paul Gilroy, 40, broke into the flat he had previously shared with Chantelle Onslow after hearing she had been on a date since their split just days earlier.

He then ordered her to move their one-year-old baby before chillingly telling her: ‘I’m going to kill you’.

She passed out as he strangled her on the sofa and regained consciousness to find him lying beside her with a kitchen knife buried in his chest.

Jailing him for 14 years, Judge William Kennedy said: ‘The offence is aggravated by her vulnerability, as a mother caring at the moment of the attack for two small children.

‘They were of course your children, and had you succeeded in either your attempts to kill her or your attempt to kill yourself, the potential consequences for those two children are chilling indeed.

‘The fact your attack was on someone with whom you had been in a loving relationship for so long no doubt took from her some of the capacity for self protection which might have been availbale had you been a stranger.’

Ari Asante, prosecuting, said that Gilroy had been in a relationship with 25-year-old Onslow for six years.

They had two children together, a daughter, who was aged five at the time of the attack in Hackney, east London, and a son aged eighteen months.

The couple agreed to split up just four days prior to the attack, with Gilroy moving in with a colleague in Chigwell, Essex.

However, he exploded into a jealous rage after hearing she had since been on a date, said Mr Asante.

‘He appeared to be fine with that but the reality of the situation was very different, as is clear from happened subsequently,’ he said.

On 9 April this year, the day he tried to kill her, Mr Gilroy sent a series of texts asking if she would get back togather if they agreed to have another child.

But when she refused to answer any more of his calls, he broke into Ms Onslow’s flat before launching into the terrifying attack while their daughter slept in the next room.

‘She was asleep with her son on the sofa when she heard repeated banging on the door,’ said Mr Asante.

‘In answer to her question ‘What are you doing’, he replied: ‘I’m going to kill you.’

‘He then proceeded to strangle her. She vaguely remembers being punched by him at the same time. She passed out.

‘On regaining consciousness, she immediately turned to their son.

‘Mr Gilroy was lying on the floor.

‘In the meantime he had stabbed himself in the chest.’

As Gilroy lay on the floor, he screamed: ‘You deserve this, this is what you did to me.’

Ms Onslow suffered bruising to her neck and haemorrhages to her eyes caused by the attack, but was discharged from Homerton hospital the same day.

In a victim impact statement, she said she was still haunted by what had happened to her.

She said: ‘I still think about what happened – the thought of what happened pops into my mind and I think about that, that I could have died.’

Gilroy, of (30) Trotwood, Chigwell, Essex, admitted a single count of attempted murder.

James Nichol, defending, argued that Gilroy had carried out the attack in a sudden fit of anger after trying to confront his ex-partner because she had been out on a date.

‘It was a spontaneous, desperate man who lost control,’ he said.

But the judge rejected this claims, saying Gilroy had planned the murder attempt before entering the flat.

‘It is evident that by the evening of 9 April, having been in contact by text and telephone with Ms Onslow throughout the day, you had decided to exact a terrible revenge for what you considered to be pas infidelity,’ he said.

‘It was pre-planned as is evident both from what you said to Ms Onslow and what you did on arrival at the flat.’

He adding that he would have been given a minimum sentence of 17 years had his murder attempt been successful.

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