A professional cage fighter who brutally killed his former girlfriend was previously branded a "serious professional criminal" who raided a Liverpool bookies and pharmacy armed with a fake gun.
The ECHO can now reveal the violent past of Andrew Wadsworth after a jury ruled that he murdered mum-of-one Melissa Belshaw at her home in March last year.
The mixed martial arts fighter repeatedly stabbed the 32-year-old, leaving her with catastrophic injuries, and left her dying under a pile of clothes in a bedroom.
Wadsworth, now facing a life sentence for the brutal knife attack in Billinge, has a long criminal history dating back more than a decade.
That includes raids on shop premises in Liverpool, in which he brandished an imitation gun during two shocking incidents.
Wadsworth, now 37, also once left a young man with a brain haemorrhage after a violent robbery during which he smashed his terrified victim over the head with a hammer.
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The man was house-sitting for his father in Hindley, Wigan, in August 2009 when the thug struck, hurling a paving slab through the front door of the house at 10.30pm.
Wearing balaclavas, Wadsworth and his accomplice demanded money from the man and his frightened 17-year-old girlfriend.
The man was hit over the head with a hammer and the teenager was also struck twice as she tried to defend her boyfriend.
The desperate teen fetched £30 for the yobs who used pepper spray on her boyfriend before running off.
Wadsworth was given a 10 year jail sentence after he was found guilty of aggravated burglary and wounding with intent.
At the time of that hearing he was already serving five years in prison for the two robberies in Liverpool while armed with an imitation gun.
Years later, while behind bars, Wadsworth was in trouble again, hiding a makeshift knife and six mobile phones in his cell at Haverigg Prison in South Cumbria.
The banned items, including a sharpened screwdriver fashioned as a knife, were found stashed away in a service duct.
He was also in possession of the banned drug bupenorphine.
Wadsworth was handed an extra year on top of his active 15 year jail term that he was serving at the time.
The convict was punished inside the prison system, leading to segregation and privileges being reduced.
But they were later restored as his conduct was then said to have been "exemplary."
His barrister said at the time, in 2015: "It is them he wishes to focus on, and to behave properly for the remainder of his incarceration."
A judge described Wadsworth as a "serious professional criminal" who was prepared to use his makeshift knife if someone "had the temerity to take your stash."
The cage fighter turned on his ex-girlfriend Miss Belshaw on May 20 at her terraced home in Upholland Road, Billinge.
Abusive and violent Wadsworth starting dating Miss Belshaw in March 2018 after he had been released from jail on licence the previous November, in 2017 for the Hindley attack and Liverpool robberies.
He was recalled to prison in January 2019 after a positive drugs test for cocaine and then released again on March 4.
Sixteen days later, he murdered Ms Belshaw.
The mum-of-one was savagely attacked by Wadsworth, who then stormed outside and knifed passer-by Gerard Bristow, out delivering a parcel at the time, who suffered serious stab wounds and a collapsed lung as out-of-control Wadsworth pinned him to the floor.
