Mother brands daughter’s killer ‘evil coward of a man’
Andrew Burke was jailed for life for executing Cassie Hayes in cold blood in front of horrified customers at a travel agent’s.
The mother of a travel agent executed in cold blood at her workplace has told her murderer face-to-face he was an “evil coward of a man” before he was jailed for life.
Tracy Hayes entered the witness box at Liverpool Crown Court to read out a powerful victim personal statement at the sentencing of Andrew Burke, who viciously slashed her daughter’s throat as she tended to customers.
Burke, 31, blamed Cassie Hayes, 28, an assistant manager at the Tui branch in Southport, Merseyside, for “ruining his life” after she began a relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Laura Williams, 29, following their break-up.
He was bailed ahead of sentencing and later told his sister on the phone: “I can’t do it any more. I’ll turn left and go home, or turn right, go to Wilkinsons, buy the biggest knife I can find, go to Southport and slit Cassie’s throat.”
In 2017, Burke was warned by police, who issued an information notice for allegedly harassing Ms Hayes and also received a court fine and an unpaid work requirement after he admitting making a malicious communication to his mother in which he repeatedly threatened to kill Ms Hayes and himself.
On January 13 this year, Burke bought a kitchen knife and entered the Chapel Street shop with his hood up and told a currency exchange cashier: “I
just want to apologise for what I am about to do.”
After he lowered his hood he walked behind Ms Hayes and placed his arms around her head before he cut her throat and sliced completely through
her voicebox.
He told a firearms officer: “I was in court yesterday and I lost. It was either kill me or kill her, so I killed her.
“The only reason I wasn’t still cutting her when you turned up was cos you’d shoot me and I didn’t want to put you through that.”
Ms Hayes was rushed to hospital as stunned shoppers in the busy precinct looked on, but died later the same day.
Tracy Hayes, from Alnwick, Northumberland, told Burke, who sat emotionless in the dock: “You took the most precious gift I ever had in my life, my beautiful daughter, my baby, in the most horrific way ever.
“You are the most evil, evil monster walking on this whole earth. You do not deserve to breathe fresh air.”
She went on: “You are a sick, disturbed man and you do not deserve to walk the streets again. You should spend the rest of your life behind bars.
“I just want my baby back and I hope you rot in hell you evil, evil coward of a man. You fat, evil coward.”
David McLachlan QC, defending, said his client had led an “unremarkable and trouble-free life” up until the age of 29.
He started a relationship with Ms Williams and they had a daughter together, but he later became depressed and moved out of their home, the court heard.
Matters “turned toxic” when he discovered she was with Ms Hayes and he took it “very very badly” and took two overdoses.
Sentencing Burke to a minimum of 26 years in jail before he can be considered for parole, Judge David Aubrey told the defendant: “You perpetrated a cold-blooded execution in public for the purpose of revenge and in my judgment the killing was an act of unspeakable savagery.
“This was a cowardly act of revenge designed to kill and did kill a totally innocent person in broad daylight in front of, and witnessed by, so many.”
Burke received a two-year concurrent sentence for possessing an offensive weapon in public.
In February he was sentenced to 12 weeks in jail for the harassment of Ms Williams.
