SEAN Freaney last night began a life sentence behind bars after jurors took just 20 minutes to convict him of murdering his partner.
The 51-year-old builder, who showed more interest in a football score than the death of his girfriend, will serve a minimum of 15 years, minus the year he has already been in custody, before he is eligible for parole.
Det Supt Rob Mason, the officer in charge of the case, last night said he felt “nothing but contempt for the selfishness and lies put forward by Freaney”.
In the early hours of March 1 last year, after a “simmering dispute” for more than two days with Lisa Consterdine, Freaney lost his temper and strangled the 48-year-old in their bedroom in Purslane Drive, Bicester.
While Miss Consterdine’s daughters and granddaughter slept in the house, Freaney dialled 999 and told the operator: “I’ve actually killed someone, so I want someone to come round and pick me up.
“If you don’t hurry up I’m going to start killing everyone.”
He added: “I’ve murdered someone...strangled her.”
As officers arrested him he casually asked what the score was in the previous day’s League Cup final and joked with police that they should provide cushions in the back of their vans. Despite the apparent confessions, Freaney answered ‘no comment’ in all seven of his police interviews and denied the murder charge when he appeared at court.
His defence, as filed by his lawyers last summer, was that he was sleep-walking during the whole episode.
However, last month, just weeks before his trial began at Oxford Crown Court, Freaney changed his story and said he had strangled Miss Consterdine when a sado-masochistic sex game went wrong.
Giving evidence on Monday he told jurors his u-turn was due to his memory returning “through dreams and nightmares”.
The seven women and five men of the jury retired to consider their verdict at 12.45pm yesterday and had agreed on their decision by 1.05pm.
David Hislop, defending, said yesterday: “This was sudden and spontaneous and not pre-planned or pre-meditated.
“It would seem from the evidence now, in light of the verdict, a sudden loss of control within what was otherwise a loving domestic relationship.”
Judge Anthony King told Freaney: “There had been a simmering dispute between the two of you over no grave matter which ended in you losing your temper and strangling her.”
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