Lincoln man will be sentenced for murder later
Holly Bramley's remains were found in a river
Last updated 8th Apr 2024
A Lincoln man who murdered his wife and disposed of her body in a river will be sentenced this morning
It happened in March last year.
26 year old Holly Bramley was described as a 'beautiful kind and loving person' by her mother at the sentencing hearing on Friday
Reading their victim impact statements members of her family said they'd 'lost a piece of themselves' and called her killer an 'evil monster'
Whilst in court the prosecution said that 28-year-old Nicholas Metson, of Stamp End, in Lincoln had stabbed Holly to death and left her remains in River Witham at Bassingham.
Her life was taken by someone who quite clearly has no regard for human life
He was due to stand trial but at a previous hearing he changed his plea to guilty - the sentencing will conclude today.
Ms Bramley's mother Annette said her family had suffered "unimaginable pain".
Describing her daughter as "beautiful, kind and loving", she said: "Her last moments being filled with pain will haunt us forever.
"Her life was taken by someone who quite clearly has no regard for human life.
"We were prevented from seeing Holly in the years leading up to her murder. We were prevented from seeing her before her death and due to his monstrous actions, he made sure we were prevented from seeing her after her death.
"Holly will always be in our hearts, we will never forget her and the impact she had on our lives."
Addressing Metson in the dock, Ms Bramley said: "Your actions have forced upon me a life sentence of grief, I am sure it will be a whole life sentence.
We are shattered people who have lived the last 12 months as shells of the people we were before this.
"I pray to God you receive the same."
Ms Bramley's sister Sarah-Jayne Lindop, said: "You stole Holly's life in March 2023, but you stole her from our life many years before that.
"You took her from a caring and loving family and on the occasions when she did make her way back home or when you told her she wasn't good enough or pretty enough, you lured her back using the one thing she wanted most in the world - to be a mother.
"We are shattered people who have lived the last 12 months as shells of the people we were before this.
"We have lost all hope of ever getting our Holly home, you carelessly took her life and threw her away like she was nothing, when to us she was everything.
I truly regret the day you ever laid eyes on our sister
"Our hurt is so raw and it likely always will be. To lose her in such a cruel and brutal way has affected us so deeply many of us have needed specialist help just to get by.
"I truly regret the day you ever laid eyes on our sister."
Allison Summers KC, defending Metson, said in mitigation that he had autism spectrum disorder which would impede his self-control and that prison will come with "certain added difficulties for him".
She said: "This is someone who has autism at a moderate level. It is a significant, combined with his learning difficulties, neurological disorder.
"This is a young man with these particular problems and what is clear is that this is somebody who is, despite certain appearances, isolated socially and operates in bubbles for the most part.
"He doesn't make friends and is incapable of seeing the world from the perspective of anyone but himself.
Sentencing will take place today
"For all the horror of what this man did, he is nevertheless himself a vulnerable man and that is why Holly was his designated carer.
"One can be both vulnerable and the perpetrator of something quite awful. Prison being as difficult as it is for many people, will come with significant difficulties to him.
"It will not have escaped the family that he does not seem to have demonstrated any remorse.
"With his autism and other disorders, he has a highly restricted capacity for remorse, he has profound difficulties to empathise with others and read the feelings of others."
Judge Simon Hirst said: "It will be a source of enormous frustration to the family of Holly that they will never be told how and why Holly died."
He adjourned sentencing until Monday.