MURDERER David Nicholas Davies has received a life sentence and must serve at least 22 years before he can be considered for parole.

Judge Keith Thomas, sitting at Mold Crown Court, told him he had carried out “a brutal, sustained and severe attack” upon the mother of his son, Emma Baum.

The 22-year-old was five feet three inches tall and 10 stone, physically no match for the six feet two inch tall defendant.

“In effect, she was defenceless to your attack upon her in her own home,” the judge said.

They had fallen out over contact with his son, which resulted in violent arguments.

On the night of 18 July, Davies, of Penrhiw Terrace, Clynnog, was particularly annoyed by something said and went to her home with a crowbar intending to threaten her or to cause damage at her home.

There were over 20 sites of injury concentrated to Emma’s head and face which represented the use of a crowbar in stabbing, slashing and bludgeoning motions.

“It was a determined assault intending to result in death,” the judge added.

Having killed her with her son asleep upstairs, he left him alone in the house with his dead mother for six hours.

“I don’t know if he awoke at any time and saw his mother in a pool of blood. I only hope he did not,” the judge said.

Davies, 25, also got Emma’s mother to the house in a phone call, so that her partially-clothed and injured body would be found by the back door, as part of his “callous and calculated” effort to distance himself from the murder.

He had shown a callous disregard for others in his efforts to avoid responsibility for the offence, the judge said.

He described it as a tragic and senseless loss of life of a young mother.

He extended his condolences to her family and friends.

The judge said that he did not believe the defendant’s evidence and rejected his claim that he picked the crowbar up instinctively from a rabbit hutch nearby.

The judge branded the defendant a hot-headed young man who had been domineering and bullying towards Emma Baum.

The attack upon her had been brutal, sustained and calculated to cause maximum harm, he said.

Judge Thomas said that Davies - now doing biblical studies in prison – did not take a crowbar to her home intending to kill her.

But he formed that intention during an argument at her home.

Emma’s mother Amanda Williams broke down and wept part-way through reading her victim impact statement in which she said the murder had been a horrific act which had totally devastated her life and that of her family.

“To think that someone so close to my daughter could do such a thing is unbelievable and totally devastating,” she said.

Mrs Williams broke down and stopped reading the statement when she told how she had been called to the scene. “Oh my God, what a mess my baby girl was in,” she said.

Davies admitted the murder of the single mum, his ex-partner, with a crowbar but denied that he had taken it with him to the scene.

The prosecution, who initially claimed it must have been a knife but then conceded that the injuries were entirely consistent with the use of a sharp crowbar, suggested that there was no such weapon already at the property and the judge said he was satisfied Davies took it with him.