Michael Ormandy donned a bulletproof vest then stabbed 32-year-old Rebekah Campbell 18 times
15:06, 15 Oct 2025Updated 15:18, 15 Oct 2025
Michael Ormandy was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend Rebekah Campbell(Image: Merseyside Police)
A dad who donned a bulletproof vest and stabbed his girlfriend to death smiled, clapped and warned her family “I know where yous all live you daft c***s” as he was found guilty of her murder. Rebekah Campbell died aged 32 after being knifed 27 times inside her own flat at Knowsley Heights in Huyton in April this year.
Her boyfriend Michael Ormandy, who bears a tattoo of the words “The Hitman” across the front of his neck, has been on trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of her murder, with the 34-year-old having claimed to be acting in self-defence during the incident. This came despite the former cage fighter and boxer, of Linacre Road in Litherland, suffering only a single cut to his hand during the altercation, requiring only minor treatment in hospital as a result.
Ms Campbell was meanwhile left covered in blood as she collapsed outside the block of flats, having sustained 18 stab wounds and been slashed a further nine times with a knife. She was said to have pleaded “get out, go away Mick” as he burst into her home unannounced and brutally attacked her before asking police officers who rushed to the scene “am I gonna die?” as they fought in vain to save her life.
Only three days earlier, “jealous and possessive” Ormandy had left his partner with a black eye after punching her in the face during a night out in Liverpool city centre. The self-confessed drug dealer then had sex with another woman at a hotel and told her that he was “going to Liverpool to sort something out” a matter of hours before the fatal stabbing.
Ormandy went on to call the police in the early hours and chillingly claimed to have a “suicide vest” while threatening to “blow everyone up”. Following his arrest, he went on to remark that his victim “must have stabbed herself”.
Following a two-week trial, Ormandy was unanimously convicted of Ms Campbell’s murder by a jury of nine men and three women this afternoon, Wednesday. Cheers were heard from her friends and family as the verdict was returned after two hours and 16 minutes of deliberations, while the defendant smiled in the dock and began clapping before shouting to the public gallery: “Come on, cloud nine. I know where yous all live you daft c***s.
The Honorary Recorder of Liverpool Judge Andrew Menary KC, who presided over the trial, then warned Ormandy that he would be removed from the courtroom if he did not remain silent, to which he replied: “I’ll go out. It doesn’t bother me.”
Ms Campbell’s loved ones were heard to say “bye bye” as Ormandy walked out of the dock down to the cells while continuing to clap. He will now be sentenced tomorrow morning, Thursday.
Addressing counsel on the matter of whether Ormandy had armed himself with a knife prior to his attendance at Ms Campbell’s flat, Judge Menary said: “In any event, the defendant’s evidence is that he was someone who habitually carried knives, which is a very substantial aggravating feature of this case, and one was used. If not taken [a knife] was picked up by him very quickly, my provisional view being that at no stage did Rebekah Campbell ever have a knife in her hand.”
Rebekah Campbell (Image: Merseyside Police/Family handout )
David McLachlan KC, prosecuting, told the court last week that Ms Campbell was home at her flat at around 10.30pm on April 15 2025 when Ormandy attended her address. Faye Henderson, who was speaking to the deceased on the phone at the same time, reported that her friend shouted “go away, get out Mick” before she heard a “loud bang” and the sound of puppies barking, at which stage the line “went quiet”.
Ormandy was then captured on CCTV leaving the building again as Ms Campbell exited her apartment shouting “I’ve been stabbed”. Having collapsed outside, she then told neighbours who rushed to her aid: “My fella stabbed me.”
While later being transported to Aintree Hospital in an ambulance, Ms Campbell asked emergency service workers “am I gonna die?” Although one police officer reassured her that she was “hurt but in the best place”, she was ultimately pronounced dead in the early hours of April 16.
The incident was said to have come against the backdrop of a relationship which “wasn’t going well”, with Ms Campbell being apparently “ready to end it”. It followed an altercation on the evening of April 12, when she was said to have thrown a shoe at her boyfriend and slapped him while they were out drinking at Revolver bar on Mathew Street.
A second “heated incident” then erupted between the two later the same night at Beer Engine on Hardman Street, with the deceased seen “kicking out” at Ormandy before he struck her to the face outside. She was reportedly left in tears after falling to the floor and suffering a black eye as a result of this blow, even remarking that she had been left “looking like the Elephant Man”.
In the afternoon before the murder, Ormandy then booked a stay at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Southport and had sex with another woman. He was said to have told this witness, who cannot be named for legal reasons, that he was “going to Liverpool to sort something out” as he later left for the evening.
Within two hours of the stabbing, Ormandy went on to call police and stated: “The police are at my flat now. If they touch my dogs, I’m going to start killing police officers, one by one. I’m going to start shooting if anything happens to my dogs. My dogs are my babies.
“I promise on my kid’s life. I’ve got a suicide vest and I’ll blow everyone up. I’ve got nothing to lose now. Yous couldn’t do your f***ing job, now look what happens. I’m the bad guy because of the world we live in. It’s a f***ing joke.
“I’m gonna blow myself up. I’m gonna blow everyone up if anyone goes near my f***ing dogs. I’ve got a suicide vest on. I’m going to kill everyone. I promise, I will kill yous all. My dogs are my babies. I will kill for them.”
Following his arrest on a canal towpath by armed officers, Ormandy remarked that “this wouldn’t have happened if you did your job last week”. His mobile phone was subsequently recovered from the water after he apparently “tried to ditch” the device.
Having been told at this stage that Ms Campbell had been stabbed an estimated 20 times, Ormandy replied: “20 times? There’s no way. She must have stabbed herself. As soon as I walked in, she started attacking me. She had the knife ready. She can’t have been stabbed 20 times. No, that’s not even possible.”
But a Home Office post mortem investigation subsequently revealed that Ms Campbell had indeed sustained a total of 27 “incised wounds” during a “sustained, violent assault”, comprising of 18 stab wounds and nine slash wounds which were “concentrated on the left side of the body”. A pathologist found that this was “in keeping with the use of severe force”, with injuries on her left arm also said to be “indicative of defence injuries as she tried to fend off an attack”.
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In his evidence, Ormandy said of his attendance at Ms Campbell’s flat: “We had a brief argument. I was saying, ‘look are we in a relationship or not, I need to know’. Obviously, I had alternative plans if she said no. We just ended up in an argument. I just said ‘I’m not a***d, I’ll go back and f*** the bird I’ve just been f***ing’. I think she thought I was lying.
“Sometimes, with my ADHD, I don’t think before I speak. I was like, s***, what have I just said? I went back round, went back in. She was standing by the breakfast bar. I was just saying, ‘look, I was only messing, I didn’t mean it’. Literally, within, I’d say about 15, 20 seconds, she just lunged at me.
“She picked [the knife] up and just turned and come at me in a downward motion. I grabbed the knife with my right hand. With the momentum of her coming towards me, I’ve fell back over the puppies and landed in the middle of the floor.
“[The knife] basically come loose as we landed. We’re both just scrambling for the knife. I managed to get the knife first, I think. She was trying to get it still. I remember hitting her once. I think I stabbed her. I was fighting for my life, do you know what I mean? I didn’t realise I had the knife. I was in a fight or flight situation. I thought the knife had come loose again.
Michael Ormandy was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend Rebekah Campbell(Image: Merseyside Police)
“When you’re fighting for your life, it just goes blank. I still can’t remember being in there that long to this day. She was attacking me. I didn’t realise I was stabbing her. I thought I was just punching her.
“I didn’t intend to lay a finger on her. I just wanted to know whether we were in a relationship or not. I already had something lined up, in case it weren’t. It’s s***, it’s horrible, but it’s the truth.
“I replay that s*** every night in my head. It goes over and over in my head every single night what’s happened, trying to think, if any slight things were different, it could have changed. Maybe if I’d let her stab me in the neck or throat, I would have survived and we wouldn’t be in this situation. It’s s*** and it’s horrible, but the facts are, if Rebekah didn’t attack me with the knife, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”