Who is Andrew Burfield, the man who murdered Katie Kenyon?

These are just some of the words that can and have been used to describe Andrew Burfield, who has been sentenced to life in prison today for brutally murdering his ex-girlfriend Katie Kenyon.

Burfield, 51, drove the mother-of-two from Padiham up to Gisburn Forest on April 22, tricking her into believing they were going for a picnic.

It was while at the forest that Burfield reigned 12 blows of an axe to Katie’s head before burying her in a makeshift grave that he’d dug the day before, with a spade he’d borrowed from his dad.

READ MORE:  Andrew Burfield jailed for life with minimum of 32 years 

Earlier this week Preston Crown Court heard how Burfield had denied deliberately killing the 33-year-old, saying he’d accidentally thrown an axe at her head after she challenged him to knock a Coke can out of her hand.

Katie Kenyon (Image: Lancs Police)

Police and the prosecution said Burfield’s actions were planned and pre-meditated, and on day three of his trial he pleaded guilty to her murder in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Today he was jailed for life, with a minimum term of 32 years. This means Burfield will be 83-years-old before he is even considered for release.

But who is Andrew Burfield and what led him to plan and execute the cold-blooded murder of his ex-girlfriend, and loving mother, daughter, sister and friend?

Burfield was known to be a bit of a handyman, who confessed to police he “knew how to dig a hole because he was a builder”, and at the time of Katie’s disappearance was working on two properties in the Burnley area.

But away from his work, he was manipulative, and spent months gaslighting Katie in relation to thousands of pounds she owed him after he launched a High Court claim against her, leading Katie to brand him a “Tinder Swindler” in text messages to her mum.

And on March 16, Katie sent a message to her mum saying she was paranoid and scared that Burfield would do something to her.

Multiple texts and Whatsapp messages exchanged between Katie and Burfield from February to April showed how Burfield played on the mum-of-two’s fragile mental health.

He even suggested she needed to go to rehab to sort her head out, offering to pay for her stay.

He would repeatedly tell her he loved her yet would accuse her of over-reacting about the money she owed, and was contacting a debt collection company behind her back, pursuing the claim, knowing full well Katie was scared about losing her home and her belongings.

She even told him in a text that she felt "vulnerable and scared".

In one text back to her he wrote: “I’m thinking we need to get you on the right path babs” and told her she needed to take two weeks off work and check herself into a rehab clinic.

In another message after Katie tells him he has destroyed her and her children's life, he said: "Breathe and get your head right, and you will see this for what it is Katie."

He was even lying to her about his feelings, as during the trial, evidence was read to the jury which revealed Burfield had been seeing another woman.

Following Burfield’s initial arrest for Katie Kenyon’s kidnap, he was asked by police in his first interview where she might be and he told them, “I think she’s at like a rehab centre”.

He then continued to spin a web of lies to detectives, telling them Katie had last been in his house on April 22 and he had no idea where she had gone from there.

But as time went on and police searches continued, he proceeded to alter his story throughout the course of his interviews.

He told police that on the night before he murdered her, he went to do a, “recce, see if I can get a final place, because we were going to go and burn our things…”

He explained this later when he said: “ … any issues that she’s had in week, or month, or whatever, she likes to write it down on a bit of paper and burn it, because what that’s supposed to give you is an end to it, and a release.

“Yeah she wanted to set the things on the fire so I said why don’t we do the Gisburn, but you’ll see it on the texts, ‘why don’t we do it at Gisburn’, and she went, ‘yeah cool’.”

Police searching Gisburn Forest (Image: Lancs Police)

In an interview on April 26, Burfield said he gave Katie £6,000 in order for her to pay off the High Court debt, and told police Katie was always asking him for money, which is why he fell out with her. 

But by the fifth interview on April 27, Burfield had agreed to speak to the police and told them on April 22 they had set up camp at ‘their place’ in Gisburn Forest and an axe was on top of a cool box they’d taken with them. 

This is when Burfield relayed his implausible tale to detectives about the Coke can incident, and said: “I went for the tree at the side of her and it, it hit her in head.

"I just sat there with her in my arms covered in blood honest to God, it were summat like a film, I were covered from head to toe in blood.”

Further exacerbating his lies, Burfield told police he hadn’t planned to kill Katie, but he was going to return to Burnley and sort the kids out, and then head back to the forest and kill himself.

He then said he took the spade and dug a hole and put Katie in it because he didn’t want anybody seeing her or the animals getting to her.

He told police it took him 10 to 15 minutes to dig the hole and after he buried her put twigs and leaves on top to make it look like there was nobody there.

He then went home, and this is when he sent his pre-written messages to her children and their dads from Katie's phone, before putting it and her bank cards on his fire, burning them, and placing the ashes in a bag which he dumped in a bin at the local Spar.

In his final interview he agreed he had initially lied to police, and was then taken to Gisburn Forest where he led police to the shallow grave where he had left Katie's body.

By piecing together the evidence, police were able to confirm that Burfield had pre-meditated Katie’s murder and had created texts in his phone three weeks prior to her death, which he planned to send to her children after he killed her.

The leading detective in the case said he had “never dealt with a case involving such an extent of cold and callous pre-meditation”.

But Burfield is no stranger to the courts, nor to prison, and despite having no recent convictions, he was actually jailed in 2001, when he was 29-years-old.

He was accused of stealing a car belonging to his then boss and selling it for £2,700.

He was cleared of theft charges after a two-day trial at Burnley Crown Court, but was still sent to prison for 12 months after admitting attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Throughout the two days of the trial before Burfield eventually confessed to his barbaric crimes, the jury heard of no motive for killing Katie.

There was seemingly no reason for his actions, no logic, no “why”; but whatever the reason, by killing a loving, innocent young mum, he made the decision to rip apart two families – Katie’s and his own, and for that, he will spend a long time - perhaps the rest of his days - behind bars.

This morning (November 17), Burfield, of Todmorden Road, Burnley was jailed for life with a minimum sentence of 32 years.