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Murderer Francesco John Prevete will have to serve at least 23 years for the killing of amateur boxer Craig Maddocks, who died a horrific death after being stabbed 52 times in pub toilets.

A judge told Prevete, 46, that he would receive a life sentence and that the minimum term he should serve before he could apply for parole would be 23 years.

The judge described it as a brutal and ferocious attack, which a prosecutor had described as amounting to "a hacking, part slicing and part stabbing to the neck".

Prevete showed no emotion as the sentence was passed.

Once inside a toilet cubicle, Prevete carried out a frenzied attack which wounded his heart, caused catastrophic internal bleeding, the slicing of the left jugular, horrendous external damage and the severing of his spinal cord.

At all times, the victim would have been "conscious of what you were doing to him", the judge told Prevete, who tried to prevent people from entering the cubicle to assist Maddocks.

The judge said there was evidence that Mr Maddocks' use of cocaine meant that he owed people money, including £300 to the defendant's father.

He said the defendant had taken cocaine, the effect of which may have been heightened by alcohol, and that he had taken a flick knife with him to the pub that night to use as a weapon if necessary.

The horrific attack was carried out in the Cambrian Vaults pub in Wrexham.

Prevete, whose father came to the UK from Italy in the 1940s , was found guilty on Tuesday of murdering ex-boxer Maddocks.

The flick knife he used was said to be of Italian origin dating back to the 1940s.

Karl Scholz, prosecuting, told the court it was rare to find so many life threatening wounds.

Prevete, of Weale Court in Wrexham, denied murdering Mr Maddocks, 34, of Llay, near Wrexham, in the early hours of June 26 last year.

He claimed he found Mr Maddocks with a knife in his back in the cubicle and that all he did was to try and help him.

He told police at the scene: "I was just trying to plug his holes. The blood was spurting everywhere."

The man who led the police probe into the horrific killing said Prevete was without doubt a dangerous individual who had shown no remorse.

Floral tributes were left outside the pub by family and friends including a boxing glove with the message "going to miss you so much our Craig" and a Liverpool FC scarf .