A FORMER firefighter from Crosby, who murdered his wife in a vicious knife attack, was found hanging in his prison cell.

Anthony De Asha, 49, was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum 15 years in December last year after killing his wife of six years, Joanne, at their semi-detached Morningside home.

Yesterday, he was found dead in his cell at Walton prison, seemingly having taken his own life.

De Asha was found by guards at around 5.30am. Staff and paramedics worked in vain to save him and he was pronounced dead some 20 minutes later.

De Asha was jailed after admitting the murder of 45-year-old relationship

counsellor Joanne on July 10 last year.

As the marriage broke down, he launched a brutal assault on his wife after she rejected his last futile gesture of giving her an orchid.

He had initially pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

But, after two psychiatrists ruled he had not experienced any mental illness, he admitted murder.

A drunken De Asha chased his wife round their conservatory in a frenzied attack, before finally grabbing her head from behind and slashing her throat.

When police arrived, Mrs De Asha was lying in a pool of blood – the kitchen knife underneath her head. Sat smoking a cigarette, De Asha said “I’ve slit her throat”.