A husband who hired a hitman to murder his former wife while he was having an affair has been jailed for life with a minimum of 22 years.

Carol Morgan, 36, was killed in a “frenzied attack” inside the shop she ran with her husband Allen Morgan in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.

The hitman, who has never been caught, used an axe or machete to kill her in August 1981, before escaping with cash and cigarettes.

Imposing a life sentence at Luton Crown Court, Mr Justice Martin Spencer told Morgan he was a “wicked” person.

He said the 74-year-old was the only person who knew the identity of the hitman.

“That is the secret you have harboured for the last 40 years. The law has now caught up with you… but the murderer remains at large, if indeed he is still alive.

“There is only one wicked person in this courtroom and that is you, Mr Morgan.”

Morgan was found guilty of conspiring to murder following a trial, but his current wife and then lover, Margaret Morgan, 75, was found not guilty of the same offence.

The couple had been living together in Brighton when police launched a cold case investigation into Carol Morgan’s death in 2018.

Mrs Morgan attended the sentencing where the judge outlined how the murder of Carol was “particularly brutal”.

She suffered between 10 and 15 blows during the attack at Mr and Mrs Morgan’s shop in Leighton Buzzard.

The judge said: “This seems to be something beyond a murder committed in the course of robbery… It was a crime where the primary motivation was Carol’s death.”

Morgan found his wife’s body in the storeroom when he returned from taking her two children, then aged 14 and 12, to a cinema to see two films in Luton.

The trip gave Morgan a “cast-iron” alibi while a paid hitman murdered Carol and robbed the store, the trial heard.

Mr Spencer said people were “surprised” when Morgan took his step-children to the cinema on the night Carol was murdered as he was “not particularly close” to the children.

He said: “The trip to the cinema was organised by you to give yourself an alibi for that evening, when you knew Carol was to be murdered,” the judge continues.

“It also made sure the coast was clear for the murderer to perpertrate the crime.”

Detectives initially believed Carol had been the victim of a burglary gone wrong, but the 2018 investigation uncovered a new witness who proved crucial in catching Morgan.

Jane Bunting, 60, told the jury she met Morgan in the Dolphin pub in Linslade, Leighton Buzzard, a few months before the murder.

Ms Bunting, who was 17 at the time, said she was “appalled” and “horrified” when Morgan asked if her ex-boyfriend knew anyone who could kill.

She said: “He’d say, ‘I hate Carol’, ‘I don’t want to be married to her’, ‘I wish she’d die’, ‘Wouldn’t an accident be nice?’.”

Det Supt Carol Foster said Ms Bunting told officers she had “been waiting for you to come see me for 40 years” when they knocked on her door.

The Morgans had spiralling debts in 1981 and Carol had made a will leaving everything to her husband.

The shop also had a life insurance policy linked to it, the trial heard.

“The killer had some inside information before entering premises,” prosecutor Pavlos Panayi KC told jurors.

“The obvious conclusion was that the killer was told by Allen Morgan where he would find the cash, which may well have constituted part payment for the murder.”

The court heard that about a year before his wife’s death, Morgan had started an affair with Margaret Spooner – whom he later married.

Dean Morgan, Carol’s son, told the jury it was a “real shock” in 2019 when the police said his step-parents had been arrested on suspicion of being involved in his mother’s murder.

The 57-year-old said he last spoke to his stepfather in 2023, when he was charged.

“He told me it was all a mix-up and I told him I had no idea about what happened,” he continued.

“The argument became heated and he put the phone down on me. We have not spoken since.”

Speaking after Morgan was convicted, Det Supt Carl Foster, who led the cold case investigation, said Carol was killed in a “frenzied and sustained attack”.

A “change in people’s allegiances” over the past four decades had been key to the case, he said.

“Carol was effectively erased from all memory, including those of her own two children, who have grown up without their mother, being raised by the man responsible for her death,” he added.

He said the force remained committed to finding out who murdered Carol.

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