A brute who spent years beating his girlfriends and ignoring court orders was today jailed for a minimum of 21 years for murdering his partner who had gone to the police for protection.
In one final attack Vincent Morgan, 47, broke her leg and as she lay prone on a riverbank, he pulled her into the water and held her beneath the surface until she suffered fatal injuries, Leeds Crown Court heard.
Lisa Welford, 49, was the childhood best friend of missing chef Claudia Lawrence, who is feared to have suffered a similarly violent death.
The court heard that the authorities were aware of the threat Morgan posed and his terrible history of domestic violence, but the legal orders available to protect victims failed to save Ms Welford.
At the time of the murder in April he was subject to his third Domestic Violence Prevention Order (DVPO) and was on police bail under the condition he had no contact with her.
The alcoholic and drug abuser had breached the two previous orders intended to protect Ms Welford from him.
Passing a mandatory life sentence, Judge Guy Kearl, KC, said Morgan had a history of violence going back decades.
He told him: When in drink you are brutal and callous with an inability to control your desire for violence towards your partners.
Vincent Morgan, 47, was today jailed for 21 years for the brutal murder of Lisa Welford, 49
Lisa Welford, 49, was the childhood best friend of missing chef Claudia Lawrence, who is feared to have suffered a similarly violent death.
The judge said Morgan habitually ignored domestic violence and court orders intended to protect someone unable to protect themselves.
Recalling the fateful attack, the judge said he placed her into the river and drowned her and at this point Morgan shouted from the dock youre wrong.
The court heard Morgan had 47 previous convictions for 86 offences including theft, taking vehicles, burglary, public order offences, assaulting police officers, drunk and disorderly, fraud and assaulting girlfriends.
Ms Welford had one son and had been in a relationship with Morgan for several years.
Three weeks before her death she told police about the latest assaults by Morgan and he was banned from contacting her by a DVPO.
Carmel Pearson, prosecuting, said Morgan was living in Ms Welfords house and had refused to move out, so she left her own home and went to live with her mother to avoid him.
Ms Pearson said Ms Welford was terrified of him and frequently refused to implicate him for a myriad of injuries.
She said family, neighbours, friends, police, social services and medical professionals all raised concerns about Morgans behaviour towards her.
In one final attack Vincent Morgan broke Lisa Welfords leg and as she lay prone on a riverbank, he pulled her into the water and held her beneath the surface until she suffered fatal injuries
Ms Lawrence (pictured), who was a childhood friend of Lisa Welford, was 35 when she mysteriously vanished after failing to turn up for work at the University of York on March 18, 2009
Despite a court order banning contact, the two of them spent the day together drinking and ended up by the River Derwent in Malton late into the evening.
A pub worker who came across them rang a friend for help and 999 out of concern for Ms Welford, who in the darkness was said by a drunken Morgan to have gone into the river.
Paramedics brought her back to life, but she suffered irreversible brain damage and died the next day.
A post mortem revealed she had a fracture to her thigh bone, thought to require the same amount of force as a car accident, and two fractures to her upper arm, one of which was estimated to have happened one to three months prior to her death.
She also had two fractured ribs, probably caused five to 10 days before her death.
Morgan told police she had jumped in the river to kill herself and she had slipped on the bank and fallen in the water.
He declined to give evidence at his trial.
A victim impact statement from her mother Rita Welford was read to the court. She told how they watched what he did to her the black eyes and broken bones and countless excuses she made for him to cover up the pain he caused her.
Ms Welford was pulled out of the River Derwent (pictured) at Malton, North Yorkshire, on Wednesday 24 April after passersby were said to have heard a commotion and rushed to help
Floral tributes left at the scene where Ms Welford was pulled from a freezing river
It added: We knew it was fruitless to try and change her mind.
She loved him and at the same time was scared of what he would do to her.
Ms Welford was adopted at birth and got in touch with her birth mother Joy Oxley after she turned 18.
A statement from Ms Oxley said Ms Welford would tell her how lovely it was to have two mums.
But she was unaware of violence Morgan was inflicting on her.
Commenting on her death: I have lost her twice now.
The court heard Morgan had a history of attacking previous partners and a former girlfriend gave evidence to recall how she ended up clinging to the railings for dear life when he tried to throw her from a bridge into the same river that Ms Welford was killed in.
When he was drinking, he was evil, the former girlfriend told the jury.
She alleged that during their 10-year relationship Morgan was repeatedly violent towards her, including twice putting his hands round her throat and strangling her without killing her.
Their relationship ended in 2016.
I couldnt cope any more, I had to leave, she said.
Last week the government announced the launch of a pilot scheme for the rollout of new Domestic Abuse Protection Notices and Orders, intended to give greater long-term protection to victims than the current domestic violence orders.
Abigail Ampofo, interim CEO of the domestic abuse organisation Refuge, said police in too many cases dont act on breaches of domestic violence orders and they are often worth little more than the paper they are written on.
She said: For DAPOs to work and provide survivors with real protections from abusers we need a real sea change in internal policing culture and the police forces response to domestic abuse overall.
The focus needs to be on quality and mandatory training for all officers on how to issue and monitor these orders, as well as specialist training around the dynamics of domestic abuse.
Without correct resourcing of trained and upskilled police officers, these protective orders will be worth nothing to women and their children experiencing domestic abuse.