Prostitute jailed for chopping up her partner

A “cruel, money-grabbing” prostitute has been jailed for 16 years after confessing to killing her partner who has been missing since New Year’s Day 2010.

The body of Offaly man Thomas Groome has never been found but his partner, Jane Buttle, 56, admitted on two occasions to different people that she had chopped Mr Groome’s body into little pieces and thrown them onto a bonfire.

Buttle, who refused to name her accomplice, also confessed to plundering Mr Groome’s bank account.

“June Buttle was welcomed into our family,” said Thomas’s sister Bridget. “She spent the last five years lying about Tommy’s whereabouts, leading us to believe he was still alive when all along she knew what had happened to him.

“She is heartless and cruel and we will never forgive her.”

Adrian Waterman prosecuting QC, said the killing took place at the home of Buttle’s son, Jason Thaxter, in Doncaster, on New Year’s Day 2010 after the couple argued.

According to the prosecuter, Buttle and Thaxter hit him once over the head once each with a piece of wood, though Thaxter has never been charged.

Detectives launched a new appeal to find Mr Groome at the start of 2014. He was 54 when he visited his son’s house in Yorkshire.

Relatives believed he was travelling to Portugal to set up a new business, but when they had not heard from him for a few months they contacted Portuguese authorities and the South Yorkshire police.

Three Yorkshire men, aged 24, 36, and 54, along with a 33-year-old Yorkshire woman and a 55-year-old woman from Ireland, believed to be Buttle, were arrested on suspicion of murder. The investigation stretched from South Yorkshire to Dublin and Lagos .

Mr Groome had been jailed in 2004 for seven years after he was found guilty of the manslaughter of his son Christopher, 19, during a “tussle” in a caravan at Churchview Heights, Edenderry, Co Offaly, on November 15, 1999.

During his trial in March 2004, it emerged that, on the night of the killing, he started shouting at his son Christopher for going to bed fully dressed. Christopher confronted him and was stabbed with a kitchen knife.

Mr Groome had 94 previous convictions for crimes such as burglary and breaching bail and Sheffield Crown Court was told that Buttle was sexually exploited by Mr Groome, her partner of 10 years, who, it was told, made her work as a prostitute.

In 2009, Mr Groome was awarded €150,000 as compensation for sexual abuse he suffered while growing up in a State institution in Ireland.

After sentencing, Mr Groome’s family issued a statement: “Thomas Groome, known to his family as Tommy was a much-loved dad, son, brother, grandad, uncle, and partner. We love and miss him so much. He was a larger-than-life character who loved to travel and sing on the karaoke.

“Throughout the last five years, we have hoped and prayed that Tommy was still alive but our worst fears became a reality when we were told that Tommy had been killed.

“However, his body has still not been found. We are devastated that we have been unable to lay him to rest in a place where we can visit and remember him and give him the funeral that he deserves...

“June Buttle has now been sent to prison. We still have to live with the pain of not knowing where his body is.”