A tradesman “appeared like he was just having a pint after work” hours before he stabbed his ex-wife to death. Gavin Shaw fatally knifed his estranged partner Michele Kennedy inside their former marital home.
The brutal and unprovoked assault was apparently motivated by revenge after she had met a new boyfriend while on holiday in Turkey. The 55-year-old victim was said to have been on the cusp of a “new lease of life” and “new chapter” following the end of their “volatile and toxic” relationship.
But, instead, her former husband stabbed the nan before returning to his son’s house in a “calm and vacant” state, where he “sat in the back garden and had a cigarette” while family and members of the public fought in vain to save her life.
Liverpool Crown Court heard today, Thursday, that Shaw and Ms Kennedy had previously been married for around 12 years but separated around three months prior to the incident on October 13 last year. This had led to the 62-year-old defendant moving out of their home on Manchester Road in Woolston, Warrington, and going to live with his son Adam two doors down.
Andrew Ford KC, prosecuting, said of the relationship: “Family members and others who had known Ms Kennedy and Mr Shaw well when they were a couple spoke of there being problems. Adam’s partner Hayley said that Gavin Shaw would often come to stay with them temporarily when he and Michele had domestic difficulties.
“Hayley said that the defendant struggled with alcohol. That is an observation of most who knew them. Their relationship was also described by some as toxic. Mr Shaw’s son described a volatile relationship between his father and the deceased and he said, as well as his father’s alcoholism, Ms Kennedy herself could contribute towards the friction that lay between them.
“Michele’s mother Patricia said that alcohol was, as she put it, a permanent issue in the relationship between her daughter and Gavin. She said and recognises that, whilst her daughter could be stubborn and argumentative, the root cause of the problem was the defendant’s drinking. It gave rise to money issues. At times in the relationship, the police were called.”
Both Shaw and Ms Kennedy were said to have holidayed together to the Canary Islands in the spring of 2025 and again later in the year, but these trips had “gone so badly” that they ultimately travelled home on separate flights on both occasions. Mr Ford added of the second vacation: “Shortly afterwards, they separated. As far as the family and Michele Kennedy were aware, this was a permanent split.
“It is important that the court understands that those who knew her well speak variously of her having a fresh outlook and a new lease of life. Mr Shaw’s murder of her was not the act of a man scorned by infidelity. This relationship was over. She had begun a new chapter in her life. Other relationships she had, for example, that with her mother, were undoubtedly improving. She was making decisions of her own, one of them to go on holiday with her mother to Turkey. She did that just before she was killed.”
Michele Kennedy was stabbed to death at a house on Manchester Road in Warrington(Image: Cheshire Police)
Michele’s mum Patricia Lawton described her daughter as “feeling differently about life, being in a better place, looking after her appearance and moving on” while they were on holiday between September 19 and 26 2025, during which time she “had a romance” with a man she had met abroad, Gordon Riddick. But Shaw was said to having continued to “pester” his ex via text messages while she was away.
Mr Ford continued: “Mr Riddick describes how he developed strong feelings for Michele Kennedy quite quickly. He said that they were inseparable for the second part of the holiday. He said that she feared Gavin’s reaction if he found out that she had met somebody else.
“After the holiday, Michele Kennedy and Mr Riddick spent the weekend prior to her murder together. On Friday, the 10th of October, he travelled down from Glasgow to Warrington. He collected Michele Kennedy. They spent the weekend together, staying at hotels in Liverpool and in Southport.
“They parted company on Sunday the 12th. On Monday the 13th, his affectionate WhatsApp messaging with Michele began to go unanswered mid-afternoon. He began to worry. Later on Monday, a friend of Michele’s texted him to say that she had been stabbed and was seriously ill in hospital. The weekend, after he was informed that she had died.”
During the morning of the day before the murder, Gavin was said to have messaged Ms Kennedy’s mum, son and a “mutual contact” saying “never thought she was a slag”, accompanied by “vomiting emojis”, after he had “plainly got wind of the fact that Michele had been with a man”. The following day, he bought four cans of Strongbow from a Co-op store near to his home before attending work with his son, who employed his dad in his own tiling business.
Shaw was described as a regular customer in the shop in question, with an employee having recalled him stating during this visit shortly before 8am: “She’s had a good weekend. She’s met with two fellas off holiday.”
Mr Ford went on to say of Shaw’s behaviour in the hours before the stabbing: “At 9.45am, he sent another text to a contact which said this. ‘She’s had a good weekend s***ging in Manchester’. The evidence is that Michele Kennedy’s situation was on his mind that morning, the day that he killed her.
“After work, in the early afternoon, the defendant and his son went for a drink at the local Warrington Conservative Club. It is a venue that he knew and went to often. Footage showed that the dad and son drank several pints. A witness noted that Gavin ‘appeared like he was just having a pint after work, as I’ve seen him do many times’. ‘He didn’t seem agitated. When he left, he appeared his normal self, saying goodbye to me’.
“The evidence is that the vehicle they had gone to work in arrived back on Manchester Road at 12 minutes to four on the 13th, in the afternoon. Adam Shaw asked his father if he would go and get £50 from the cashpoint for a takeaway. Mr Shaw left. He took Adam’s bank card. At eight mins to four, footage from the Sainsburys opposite the addresses captures Mr Shaw leaving his front door and walking some little way on the pavement.”
Shaw was seen on Ring doorbell camera footage approaching Ms Kennedy’s home, being “noted to discernibly pause and take a moment” before turning the handle of the front door and entering. Mr Ford added: “The defendant emerged, to the second, three minutes later exactly. It is the prosecution’s case that, while inside for those three minutes, Gavin Shaw murdered Michele Kennedy by stabbing her in the chest twice with a kitchen knife.
Gavin Shaw admitted murder after stabbing his 55-year-old partner Michele Kennedy to death(Image: Cheshire Police)
“There is limited evidence of what happened at the scene. Her handset was found submerged in water in the kitchen sink. The defendant had not visited pre-armed with the knife, not with any weapon. Once inside the address, he took up the knife from a set of kitchen knives which she kept in the kitchen. They were bought for her as a gift from her mother.
“The footage captures Michele Kennedy emerge first. She is followed immediately by the defendant, but they are separate. There is no struggle nor commotion. It is just three minutes after his entry. She got to the end of her garden path, turned right down Manchester Road and slumped to the pavement.”
Shaw was meanwhile seen “milling about on the pavement” beside the busy main road while numerous vehicles passed the scene. One member of the public recalled seeing him “standing calmly over her, looking down”, with a picture which was taken by one witness having shown Ms Kennedy by now in possession of the knife with a “distressed” look on her face.
Two passing workmen then approached, with one kicking the weapon away between two wheelie bins. One of them, Louie Holt, called 999 after finding Michele “gasping and asking for her inhaler”.
Shaw was meanwhile described as “acting calmly, without emotion”, with Mr Ford saying: “He offered a slight smile to Mr Holt. The defendant lit a cigarette. The witness formed the impression that the defendant, quote, did not seem bothered. The witness, Mr Holt, said that he was scared by the extent of the defendant’s despondency.”
Having returned to his son’s house with “blood on his hands”, a “calm and vacant” Shaw then found his daughter-in-law Hayley Higgins washing up, at which stage he told her: “Hayley, I’ve stabbed Michele. You need to go and help her.”
Adam Shaw was also home at the time and “heard Mr Shaw snr confess”, saying that he had “used a Ninja knife to stab Michele”. He then grabbed hold of a towel and rushed to Ms Kennedy’s aid while his father “went and sat in the back garden and had a cigarette”.
Mr Ford added: “Hayley Higgins heard the defendant shouting, ‘she’s a slag’. Hayley knelt down on the pavement with the deceased. The deceased said ‘he stabbed me’, and she was pale. She was struggling to breathe and she was, by now, in and out consciousness. This witness gave Michele an inhaler, put pressure on her wounds and held her hand.
“Emergency personnel attended, and significant attempts were made to save Michele Kennedy’s life. Her condition was deteriorating. The knife had caused substantial damage to a number of her internal organs, and a consultant surgeon was flown to the scene.
“Extensive surgical procedures were carried out on the roadside. She lost her pulse. She went into cardiac arrest due to extensive internal bleeding. One of her lungs had collapsed. This work carried on on the way to Aintree Hospital in an ambulance, where she was admitted at eight minutes past five. She needed an enormous blood transfusion. Her heart was empty.”
Having suffered stab wounds to her stomach and liver, with the blood supply to several other organs also being cut off, Ms Kennedy “remained clinically unstable in the days that followed” and underwent several rounds of surgery. However, she subsequently died as a result of her injuries at 10.18am on October 18.
Shaw was meanwhile estimated to be twice the drink driving limit at the time of the incident, saying in a prepared statement under interview following his arrest on suspicion of attempted murder: “I want to say that I’m devastated at what has happened. I didn’t intend to kill Michele.
“Everything happened very quickly. I felt emotionally overwhelmed and in shock. I didn’t make any conscious decision. It was a reaction in the heat of the moment. It felt like I snapped. I just grabbed the kitchen knife from the side in the kitchen. I’m in complete shock.”
Having been remanded into custody at HMP Altcourse, Shaw was then informed of Ms Kennedy’s death on October 19. Members of prison staff said in their evidence that he was “tearful and “distressed” at the news and commented: “It should never have got that far. I’d been screaming at her because she’d been on her back getting s***ged in Manchester.”
Shaw was also said to have given an account of “pushing her into the corner of the room, taking a knife and stabbing her once” while she was “saying ‘sorry’ and telling him ‘don’t, I’ll tell them it was an accident'”. He then reported that he had informed his son of the stabbing and “asked him to get an ambulance while he had a can of beer and lit a cigarette”.
A mental health nurse meanwhile reported hearing Shaw, who has no previous convictions, saying “f***, I shouldn’t have done it” after being told of Michele’s death. He also stated that he and Ms Kennedy had “argued about the weekend” and that she had “denied sleeping with the other man” before he had stabbed her.
Shaw, who is represented by Richard Pratt KC and Carmel Wilde, pleaded guilty to murder during an earlier hearing in February. He appeared expressionless and emotionless during this morning’s hearing, with Judge Brian Cummings KC expected to pass sentence this afternoon.