Child killer Jordan Monaghan must serve 40 years in prison before parole as he was given three mandatory life sentences for smothering two of his children to death and murdering his new partner with a drugs overdose.
The 30-year-old was ordered to be brought to court by the judge for sentencing after missing the past few days of his trial by saying he felt unwell.
Monaghan, a manipulative and controlling gambling addict, was not present as the guilty verdicts were delivered by the jury foreman on Friday morning, following six days of deliberations after a 10-week trial at Preston Crown Court.
After being brought from prison on the judge’s orders, he sat in the dock expressionless and showing no emotion.
He was just yards from the public gallery where Laura Gray, 28, the mother of the children he killed, and the foster parents of Evie Adams, 23, his final victim, watched as sentence was passed.
Eight months later he smothered his 21-month-old son Logan in a public swimming baths cubicle. Six years after that, he murdered his new partner Ms Adams with a drugs overdose.
Passing three mandatory life sentences for murder, Mr Justice Goose said: “Your victims were your children, then your partner.
“It is difficult to know why you carried out these offences. Having listened to the evidence in this trial, in short you are an exceptionally controlling, selfish and cruel man.
“The trigger to these offences were your volatile relationships.
“The consequences were the snuffing out of the lives of two very young children and a young woman.”
Speaking of Ruby, the judge added: “Her life had barely started and you extinguished it.”
Miss Gray, in her victim impact statement, parts of which were read to the court, said: “All I ever wanted to be was to be a mum and give my children the love and opportunities I never had growing up.
“When the children were born they consumed my world. I loved every single day I had with them.
“Jordan was their daddy, he was one of the two people who was meant to love and protect them the most in the whole world.
“Instead he did the opposite.”
