Jamie Starbuck, convicted of murdering his Jewish wife, Debbie. Photo: Nottingham Police.

A British judge sentenced a man to a minimum term of 30 years in prison for murdering his wife and, noting the “horrific” nature of the crime, cited the disposal of her body as particularly cruel seeing as it didn’t keep with her strict Jewish background.

“On more than 75 homicides, I’m trying hard to think of one as horrific as this. This was a cruel deception to obtain control of her assets. This case shows the categories of wickedness are never closed. You knew she came from a strict Jewish background where cremation is wholly outside their tradition.

“You dismembered her body and burnt it. Even in death you stripped her of all dignity. It is difficult to imagine a more grotesque and inhumane act,” Judge Michael Stokes QC said during the sentencing of Jamie Starbuck, 36, who killed his wife a little more than a week after marrying her. Starbuck then fled the country and traveled the world on a small fortune his wife had inherited shortly before the two met.