Christopher Nigel May from Pontypridd, who murdered Tracey Woodford after she spurned his advances, told he may never be freed

A former butcher who strangled a woman before decapitating and dismembering her body has been jailed for life.

Christopher Nigel May, 50, murdered Tracey Woodford, 47, after she spurned his advances.

Cardiff crown court heard the steakhouse worker, who had a fixation with red heads, invited Woodford to his flat in Pontypridd, south Wales, on 21 April after meeting her at his local pub a few hours earlier. After choking his victim to death, May had sex with her body and then used a “gruesome collection” of knives to dismember it.

Police officers who searched May’s flat found human arms and legs in a shower cubicle and a torso stuffed in a rucksack. Woodford’s head was later discovered in a secluded tunnel. Detectives believed he kept it as a souvenir.

The high court judge branded May a dangerous sexual predator before handing him a mandatory life sentence with a minimum term of 28 years. The earliest May can hope to be released will be in 2043, although the judge said the defendant may never be freed.

Nicola Davies said: “You have fought this case from start to finish – and remorse has not been a feature of your defence. Your murder of Tracey Woodford was cruel, callous and determined. These same characteristics prompted you to dismember the body of Tracey and then deliberately conceal it. This was done for one reason: to avoid detection for the murder you knew you had committed.

“You embarked on this without little thought for your victim, and still less for that of her family, whose grief for their daughter and sister was made more anguished by the grim dismemberment of her body.”