Moment husband walks into police station and admits 'I have killed my wife' after he battered her to death with a hammer and dumped body in a chest freezer at family home

This is the moment an evil husband who murdered his wife and kept her body in a chest freezer at their home for two weeks finally admitted the killing to police.

David Barraclough, 46, beat Carolann Barraclough around the head with a claw hammer then bound her with packaging tape, wrapped her in a duvet and placed her body in a freezer in their utility room.

After killing the 37-year-old mother-of-three, callous Barraclough sent text messages from her phone to her daughter pretending she was still alive and recovering from an illness in hospital.

Following the murder at their home in Horbury, West Yorkshire, on February 20, Barraclough began searching online for escorts, signed up to the dating app Tinder and spent his wife’s money in local pubs.

Footage has now been released of the moment heavily-tattooed Barraclough walked into a police station on March 5 to confess to killing his wife – only to claim he had ‘snapped’ after suffering years of domestic abuse.

In a softly-spoken voice, Barraclough can be heard saying that he has ‘attempted suicide’ and ‘killed my wife’, before he is asked to take a seat.

He would later tell officers she was 'in the freezer' at his home, adding that he was ‘a victim’ and a '17 stone boy no-one will believe'.

Jailing him for a minimum term of 21 years and six months at Leeds Crown Court on Friday after Barraclough pleaded guilty to murder on the first day of a scheduled trial, Judge Andrew Stubbs KC said his account of abuse was a 'callous' self-serving cover story.

'He spun a web of lies and deceit to explain his wife’s disappearance, telling his children and others that she was unwell and receiving treatment, providing updates and further explanations, and sending messages from her phone to perpetuate this fiction,’ he said.

‘He even allowed her daughter to exchange messages with her mother's phone in the belief that she was communicating with her, rather than with him.’

Barraclough later claimed that his wife had attacked him with the hammer and he had acted in self-defence, although this was rejected by the judge.

Mrs Barraclough, described by her sister Sarah Rowley as 'the bright light of our family', was last seen alive outside her home on February 19.

The following day she was described as looking 'pale, miserable and terrified' with Barraclough looking 'really, really, really scary'.

Children at the address were made to believe that the pair subsequently left together for hospital.

However, prosecutors say Barraclough then murdered his wife in a bedroom before driving away alone at 10.03am.

A minute earlier, he had searched online for an escort in Wakefield offering sexual services.

Ms Rowley added: ‘Her children were the centre of her world. She loved being a mum. The void of her absence is agonisingly loud.

‘It is incredibly painful to see how he targeted her loving and social nature.

'Slowly and calculatingly he isolated her from the people who loved her the most and created barriers to slowly stop us from seeing her or staying connected to her.'

Barraclough refused to appear in the dock for his sentence. 

Under new legislation known as ‘Olivia’s law’ defendants can now be brought to court using reasonable force or jailed for not attending, however these powers are not yet in force.

Following the sentence, Jill May, senior crown prosecutor for Yorkshire, said: 'David Barraclough tried to paint himself as a victim of domestic abuse who had no choice but to kill his wife and was heartbroken by what had happened.

‘The evidence told a very different story.’