Perverted English man arranged brutal murder of his Sikh wife

Marsh - womaniser and alcoholic

Serial womaniser Stephen Marsh had spent years searching for a lover who would indulge his secret longing to use knives in sado-masochistic sex games.

When he started sleeping with Rebecca Harris, a fellow worker at the Conduit 118 call-centre in Swansea, he finally met a willing partner.

Their nine-month affair was the last in a long line he had conducted behind his wife Jaspal's back.

Born in the Penlan area of Swansea, he moved to London in his late teens and it was there, in 1990, he met Jaspal, while working for the Ministry of Defence.

She was from a traditional Sikh family and relatives were initially opposed to the relationship.

Even so, they married in 1993 and set out in business together, running an off-licence in Brighton. Sometime after they joined Whitbread, managing pubs in London and later back in Marsh's home city of Swansea.

Jaspal was only the second woman he had dated. Giving evidence to the jury, he admitted that when he attracted the attention of women, he found it hard to resist.

Jaspal Marsh was stabbed 16 times in her bedroom

"I was immature. I accepted the attention with glee," he told the court.

His womanising continued when the couple moved to Swansea and bought their house in Gorseinon.

The jury heard evidence from three former lovers, including teenage mother Michelle Hales.

Prosecuting barrister Huw Davies said Marsh had raised the idea of using knives in sex games with each of them but all had turned him down or laughed the suggestion off.

"He had been trying for years to find a woman who he could interest in using knives to cut one another up as part of a programme of sexual activity," said the barrister in his closing address.

Drink problem

On day one of the trial, the jury was shown a video, recorded by Marsh on his mobile phone, of him cutting Harries with the kitchen knife she would subsequently use to stab his wife.

Their affair was common knowledge among colleagues where they worked and colleagues of Jaspal's at Admiral Insurance told how she had begun to suspect her husband's infidelity.

Marsh and Harris spent most of the week before his wife's murder in each other's company. Once he and his wife had left for work, he would sneak back to his home with Rebecca and the two would have sex in the bedroom where Jaspal was later killed.

But one element of Marsh's life of which his wife was painfully aware was his 20-year drink problem.

He admitted in court that he would rise at 4.50am each morning and after walking his dog would take three cans of Strongbow from their fridge which he would drink before leaving the house.

He would drink another before arriving at his office in Orchard Street in Swansea and his morning, lunchtime and afternoon breaks were spent in the Kings Arms on High Street.

Marsh's lover, Rebecca Harris, claimed he had brainwashed her

When not accompanied by Harris, he preferred to drink alone with his head buried in his newspaper.

He told the court he needed the alcohol to give him the confidence in work to do his job - which involved taking directory inquiry calls from Vodafone customers.

Although he would drink over 10 pints a day, very few people had ever seen him appear drunk or slur his speech.

Other than womanising and drinking, Marsh's main interest in life was supporting Swansea City.

He would regularly go to home games and occasionally travel away - once taking Harris with him when they stayed in a hotel.

It was through football that he had his only previous brush with the law.

There is not any companionship at all What Jaspal Marsh told colleagues

In 1989 he was fined £40 for using threatening and abusive language at a match, but apart from that he had no previous convictions.

Prosecutor Huw Davies told the court that to many his life must have seemed "blissful".

Jaspal would take care of his every need, washing, ironing and laying out his clothes in the morning before he went to work.

She was the main breadwinner and would even buy the cider he drank in such quantities at the supermarket for him.

He would rarely go out in the evenings, although towards the end of the marriage the court heard evidence that their marriage was strained.

From February 2006 she was confiding in colleagues that she was unhappy at home.

"There is not any companionship at all," she told one. She and Marsh were "like ships that pass in the night" she told another.

Mr Davies told the jury that in the weeks before her death she had even raised the idea with friends of getting a divorce.

But she was brutally stabbed to death before she could take it any further.