A cruel and callous murderer who strangled his new bride and stuffed her body into a suitcase will receive a life sentence at Bradford Crown Court this morning.

Thomas Nutt will be brought from prison to hear the minimum term he must spend be-hind bars before he can even be considered for parole.

Last week, the jury’s guilty verdict was greeted with cheers from the public gallery as Nutt, 46, was convicted of murdering Dawn Walker.

He had admitted her manslaughter but denied murder.

The jury deliberated for little over three hours before finding that the scrap metal deal-er of Shirley Grove, Lightcliffe, intended to kill Miss Walker, 52.

Today at 10am, the sentencing hearing will begin in front of Judge Jonathan Rose.

During the trial, the court heard that Nutt murdered his wife with a choke hold, causing fatal compression to her neck.

She had a catalogue of injuries that included deep bruising to both sides of her head, a black eye with lacerations, deep bruising to her jaw and a fractured nasal bone and eye socket.

There were fractures of the left tibia and fibula and four broken ribs probably caused after death when Nutt forced her body into the suitcase.

Prosecutor Alistair MacDonald QC opened the trial by stating: “It is often said that someone’s wedding day and the immediate period after that is one of the happiest times of their life.

“That was not the case with Dawn Nutt, nee Walker, whose body was found stuffed into a suitcase and dumped into some undergrowth in a field towards the back of Thomas Nutt’s house four days after she was married to this defendant.

“The wedding had taken place on October 27, 2021, and the discovery of the body in the suitcase was made on October 31.

“The last known sighting of her alive was in fact made by her maid of honour and that sighting was between 10.30 and 11pm on her wedding night.”

The jury heard that Nutt had left Miss Walker’s body in a cupboard on a bag of potatoes and gone to Skegness alone on ‘honeymoon’ before acting out the ‘ghastly charade’ of looking for her saying she had disappeared.

He phoned the police to report his new wife missing on October 31 saying she had left to visit her daughter in Brighouse and hadn’t turned up there.

The police went to his home to take missing person’s report just as he was wheeling the suitcase away.

He was ‘for all the world like a distraught husband of a new wife who had apparently disappeared without trace,’ Mr MacDonald said.

The jury was shown film of the couple’s wedding day. Miss Walker wore a bright red bridal gown for the ceremony at Halifax Register Office and the celebrations continued at Brighouse’s Prince Albert pub.

CCTV then played in court showed Nutt dragging the wheeled suitcase containing Miss Walker’s body down the garden and dumping it in bushes.

The police officer dealing with the missing person report noticed that he was sweating and had a wet stain on one knee where he had knelt to deposit the case.

Later that afternoon, the maid of honour at the wedding, Anne-Marie Metcalfe, found Miss Walker’s body. She opened the case zip a few inches and was shocked by the con-tents.

Friends and family of Miss Walker will be back in court this morning to see Nutt jailed for life.