The sister of a midwife brutally murdered by her lover has told the killer as he was jailed for life that she will be forever haunted by the false comfort he gave the family hours after the death.

Michael Stirling was stared down in the dock by Samantha Eastwood’s younger sibling during her emotional evidence as she said his actions had robbed her of a “sister, mentor and best friend”.

Stirling was sentenced to a minimum of 16 years, 299 days, at Stafford crown court on Monday, after previously admitting the murder of Eastwood, a Royal Stoke university hospital midwife.

Stirling, 32, a landscape gardener, was the brother-in-law of the victim’s former fiance John Peake, who was in court for the hearing. Peake told the court he believed Stirling had tried “to point the blame in my direction” for the murder, after their engagement and relationship had ended in January this year, in part because of Stirling’s continuing affair with Eastwood.

Sentencing him, Mrs Justice Susan Carr told Stirling: “Samantha was alone in her home where she should have been safe and sound, and trusted you in her house. On any view, she suffered what must have been a terrifying assault resulting in a killing that was not immediate.”

Carr said Stirling had then “weaved an extraordinary web of deception”, causing immense distress to the family, including sending fake texts pretending to be from Eastwood and even hugging the victim’s sister Gemma Eastwood.

The judge said: “Throughout this period you were repeatedly acting deliberately and without remorse; you were composed and callous.”

Eastwood, described in court as a “fantastic midwife“ and “bubbly”, was buried by Stirling near a disused quarry in Caverswall, Staffordshire.

Stirling had told his wife he was out searching for Eastwood, when in fact he was concealing her remains. He placed her inside a duvet cover taken from her home, and wrapped her in tape covering her eyes, mouth and nose, before digging a shallow hole.

He claimed to have strangled and smothered Eastwood in her bedroom in a “fog of anger”, after alleging he wanted to bring their three year-affair to an end.

But in text messages sent to Eastwood the day he killed her, Stirling said: “Please come back, it’s killing me. I want to give up without you.” In the last of the two messages, sent at 7.45am on 27 July, he added: “I hope you know what trouble you’re causing xxx come back please, asap.”

Opening the case, Jonas Hankin QC, prosecuting, said Stirling had been “hounding” the midwife, making 128 phone calls to her in July alone.



In court for the sentencing on Monday, Gemma Eastwood looked at her killer and said: “The murderer’s family haven’t lost a loved one – they can go and visit him and speak to him on the phone.

“I will never get a chance to see my sister or speak to her on the phone, because of what he did to my sister.”

Stirling looked away, as she continued: “On the night Samantha went missing, the accused had the audacity to turn up at my sister’s house. He had the nerve to walk around my sister’s, like nothing had happened.”

She added: “Before he left my sister’s house that night he hugged me, after he had killed my sister. Forever this will haunt me.”



