A "monster" has been jailed for at least 30 years after exacting revenge on his ex-partner by stabbing her daughter to death.

Neville Hord, 44, from Bradford, killed mother-of-one Jodie Willsher, 30, in the Skipton branch of Aldi on 21 December last year in front of horrified shoppers.

Hord had been planning the attack for weeks after attaching a tracking device to Mrs Willsher's car and buying a pistol crossbow as an "option weapon".

He told police Mrs Willsher had made his relationship with her mother "very difficult".

The court heard how he wanted revenge and so went into the Aldi branch in North Yorkshire where she worked armed with a knife and an axe.


Image: Neville Hord was jailed for at least 30 years

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC told Hord he was a "monster" and "truly and horribly rotten to the core".

The judge said: "You chose a time and a place to, in effect, execute; to kill; to murder."

He said the killing was calculated to cause the "maximum pain, horror, shock and trauma".

Prosecutor Peter Moulson QC told the court how Hord stabbed Mrs Willsher several times in the store before he was stopped and restrained by members of the public.

The prosecutor said Hord admitted he went to the store to kill Mrs Wilsher and told officers he thought she had smiled at him as they made eye contact in the supermarket before he stabbed her.

He said it was a "cold-blooded public execution perpetrated for the purpose of revenge".

Image: Flowers left outside the Aldi store in Skipton

In an emotional statement read to the court, Mrs Willsher's husband Malcolm said his life and that of his daughter Megan had been ripped apart.

He said his daughter had told him she "hated" him "for not bringing mummy back".

He told the court: "I'm so scared he'll get out and do something to Megan."

At Mrs Willsher's funeral Mr Willsher said his wife's death had left a "great hole in our lives" and added that she and his daughter were "more than mother and daughter, they were best friends".

Image: Malcolm Willsher said his wife's death had left a 'great hole in our lives'

At an earlier hearing, Hord's family passed a statement to the media via his lawyers in which they expressed their "sincere condolences" to Mrs Willsher's family and added: "No words can convey our sorrow for this tragic turn of events."

Temporary Detective Chief Inspector Mark Pearson, of the Cleveland and North Yorkshire Major Investigation team, said: "Neville Hord planned and carried out a horrific attack on Jodie Willsher while she was working in a busy supermarket in the run up to Christmas.

"His terrible actions have devastated a family, leaving a mother without a daughter, a husband without a wife and a young girl without her mother.

"No sentence could ever compensate for their loss. My thoughts are with the family at this very difficult time."