A man has been jailed for life for strangling a colleague after becoming obsessed by the notion she was having a secret relationship with another worker.
Martin Corns, described in court as controlling and manipulative, insisted that 34-year-old Heather Jordan spend a certain amount of time with him each week.
When she resisted his sexual advances he began stalking her, stationing himself outside her home in Taunton, Somerset.
In February, a few days after sending Jordan a Valentine’s Day card in which he said she made his heart beat faster, Corns, 52, strangled her in a park in Taunton. She suffered bruising to her arms and a leg, suggesting there had been a struggle, the court heard.
After killing Jordan, Corns tried to make it look as if he she had been the victim of a botched robbery. But police found a ripped-up letter from Corns to Jordan in the park that read: “I can’t wait to spend my life with you. Hopefully that won’t be too long my darling. Remember, I love you so much and always will.”
Jailing Corns for murder, the judge, Brian Forster QC, said he would serve a minimum of 17 years in prison before being considered for parole. Forster told Corns: “You formed a friendship with Heather Jordan. You were possessive and extremely jealous.”
Exeter crown court heard the pair, who met while working as cleaners at a chemist, were in a “committed friendship”.
Kate Brunner QC, prosecuting, said Jordan was quiet and shy, lived with her mother and did not have a boyfriend. She said Jordan and Corns would talk on the phone, exchange text messages, go on day trips and walk to work together but the relationship was not sexual.
She told the court: “There was a darker side to their relationship. Martin Corns is a man who was controlling, manipulative and who was obsessively jealous. Their relationship had rules. One of the rules was that they had to spend a certain fixed time together. Martin Corns required fixed times of Heather Jordan to make herself available.”
In a note Jordan wrote to Corns, found at his home in Taunton, there was a list of times for each day of the week that she would be free to see him. At the bottom she wrote: “Martin this is only an opening offer.”
In another letter police found at his home, Jordan had apologised for reducing the times she was available because she had wanted to do something else. “I had no right to do that,” she wrote.
The court heard she later messaged Corns telling him to “back off and leave me alone”, adding: “I have not got anyone else. I can only say this so many times.”
Corns, who denied murder, accepted in the witness box that it was “creepy, strange and wrong” to have stood outside Jordan’s home. He also admitted he was very jealous of a work colleague who he thought was in a relationship with her.
Jordan’s mother, Jennifer, said her daughter was kind and caring. She said the “sparkle” had gone out of the house since her death. Her father, Alan, who visits the park where she was killed every day, said: “I really cannot explain how devastated I am that she was killed by someone she trusted.”
