Karen Vamplew was convicted at Leicester Crown Court of murdering her mother-in-law in Newark

A woman has been jailed for killing her vulnerable mother-in-law to pay off her debts in a ‘killing for profit’.

Karen Vamplew, 44, formerly of King Street, Newark, will serve a minimum of 32 years before being eligible for parole, Judge Timothy Spencer ordered today (May 20).

A four-week trial follows at Leicester Crown Court.

Speaking in court, Judge Spencer said: “On December 15, 2021, you set a fire which burned your mother-in-law Elizabeth Anne Vamplew. You killed her.

“She was a sister, a mother and an aunt, a neighbor and a friend to many. Until her mobility declined, she was well known in Newark as a cheerful and bright presence.”

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Elizabeth, 77, known to her friends and family as Anne, died of severe burns and smoke inhalation injuries in hospital on December 15 after being rescued from her burning home at 2 Eton Court, Newark, in the early hours.

The judge admitted her death had been devastating, particularly for her family who “loved her dearly”.

Vamplew, Judge Spencer said, set fire to the corner of Anna’s bed while she slept – most likely with a lighter – leaving her mother-in-law to wake up to find her bed on fire.

He said: “Flames, smoke, an inferno, her unable to hear, confused, terrified – that was hell.”

He said Anne, who was deaf and had limited mobility, was “particularly vulnerable”.

It was also determined that Vamplew had done a “significant degree of planning” but that it was far from sophisticated.

Addressing Vamplew, he stated, “Your plan was half-baked and destined to end in disaster for everyone, including yourself.”

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He suggested it started at 4pm on December 14 when Vamplew did a Google search about smoke alarms, may have been triggered by her visit to the bank with Anne earlier that day and was implemented at 22:25 when it actively disabled the location. function on her phone.

Outlining her movements, Judge Spencer explained that Vamplew visited Anne’s home twice during the night.

During the first visit, just before 1am, which lasted 30 minutes, she did “a bad, horrible thing” before returning home and removing the hoodie and jeans she had been wearing, he suggested that he feared “an obvious connection with starting the fire”. .

He also believed she had expected to go unnoticed and had “grossly underestimated the extent of the private security cameras and completely underestimated the effectiveness of the police number plate recognition system”.

He added: “That you visited twice was part of your plan, it wasn’t supposed to come out.

“In both of your first reports to the police, you presented yourself as going there only once. The fact of two visits was one of the aspects of the case that you could never explain.”

On his second visit, Vamplew returned to Eton Court in his pyjamas. Judge Spencer described the visit as her attempt to look like the “heroine” who had rushed from her bed to help her mother-in-law but was “thwarted by the intensity of the fire”.

He added: “If the only reason for going back was to get help, you would have called 999 immediately, but you went into the house again – this time activating the rescue system.

“You were trying to make it sound like Anne was trying to call for help through the rescue system – one of the explanations you gave was that you left your bed and the house because of an alert from that system.

“In the days that followed you gave a series of inconsistent, untruthful accounts … you eventually got caught in a tangled web of lies.”

While Judge Spencer accepted the defense that there was no “high living” or extravagance – he said it was a “murder for profit”.

Anne’s bank account – which Vamplew had access to – was drained from £27,000 to £105 in eight months, despite Anne’s “healthy” income from her pension which should have provided her cover expenses.

Addressing Vamplew, he added: “You got carer’s allowance – but that wasn’t enough for you. You milked that account.

“This is a serious breach of her trust.”

He noted that Vamplew had significant debts – an unpaid electricity bill of more than £10,000, council tax, gas, mobile phone and Sky TV bills, all unpaid and accompanied by multiple final demands.

Judge Spencer said he was satisfied at the time of the fire that Vamplew saw Anne as a burden. Her account had been frozen a few days before, meaning she could no longer access the money.

He added: “Your husband was in the dark about the financial mess and you knew he was going to inherit half the fortune.

“In your confused thinking, you somehow thought that this fire would somehow mean your financial exploitation would not come to light, and that Mark’s inheritance of half the fortune would alleviate all financial problems.”

In deciding the minimum term of Vamplew’s life sentence, Judge Spencer took into account the mitigation of Vamplew’s and her four children’s lack of prior convictions.

However, the aggravating factors of Anne’s vulnerability, the significant degree of planning, the abuse of a position of trust and the fact that Anne would have suffered physically prior to her death outweighed the mitigating factors.

A total of 234 days were removed from the sentence to account for time Vamplew spent in custody.

Judge Spencer also made a formal judicial commendation to Fire Constables Cooper and Barber – who “showed bravery of the highest order” – and Detective Sergeant Pollard – who “conducted himself commendably” – and his team in the case .

Following the sentencing, Detective Chief Inspector Clare Dean, who oversaw the inquest, said: “This is a very sad and tragic case and I am pleased that the jury saw through Karen Vamplew’s lies and found her guilty of murder after deliberation attentive

“This has been a long and complex investigation and I would like to commend the dedicated work of the investigative team and outside specialists to bring Vamplew to justice.

“Throughout this investigation, Vamplew maintained that she was not responsible for her own mother-in-law’s death.

“The simple fact is that she deliberately set a catastrophic and fatal fire, knowing full well that Elizabeth was asleep inside the property. It was a brutal and premeditated act born of malice and greed.

“Today’s sentence brings to an end a long legal ordeal for Elizabeth’s family, but I am acutely aware that it will never ease the pain they feel every day at this terrible loss. I would like to thank each and every one of them for their enormous courage and dignity in unimaginably difficult circumstances.”