Michael Ormandy met Rebekah Campbell in an Irish bar just months before he killed her.
A drug dealer who stabbed his girlfriend 18 times while wearing a bulletproof vest just four months after meeting her has been jailed for life.
Rebekah Campbell met Michael Ormandy in Lanigan’s Irish Bar just two weeks after her MMA fighter ex-boyfriend Joseph Cummins kicked her down two flights of stairs in an unprovoked attack on Boxing Day 2024.
In the early hours of April 13, the couple were “play fighting” in Revolver bar on Mathew Street, Liverpool. Ms Campbell later slapped Ormandy in front of a police officer, apparently sparked by him calling her a “slag” for “twerking in front of a group of Irish lads”.
She was ultimately allowed to go on her way after he declined to make any complaint to the PC, with the two taking a taxi to Beer Engine on Hardman Street in order to watch a UFC fight between Paddy the Baddy and Michael Chandler, reports the Echo.
As the ring walks were being shown on the big screens inside, they got into a “heated argument”, with Ormandy caught on camera apparently spitting at Rebekah before storming out.
A brief scuffle between the two in the doorway would leave her on the ground and being attended to by doormen, and then, having got back to her feet and followed him up the street, he would strike his girlfriend with a sickening punch, leaving her with a black eye and in tears.
With Ormandy having scuttled back to her apartment in a taxi as she was taken to hospital, later spending the night at her friend Faye Henderson’s house.
Over the previous 17 years, Ormandy had already amassed a total of 14 previous convictions for 31 offences. This included a suspended prison sentence in 2010 after he was arrested by armed police while carrying a carving knife in his back pocket, as well as a baseball bat, following an anonymous tip-off.
The following year, he was handed four months behind bars after punching and spitting at his own mum. Then, in June 2021, he was jailed for a further 24 months for offences including assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
This came after he attended his ex-partner’s address on successive days and “accused her of cheating on him” before kicking and punching her.
On the afternoon of April 15, he booked a room at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Southport and invited a barmaid, who he had met in October 2024 at the pub where she worked, for company.
The two had sex and Ormandy would visit her workplace later on that evening before departing again while telling her that he was “going to Liverpool to sort something out”.
Ormandy would still continue to demand an update from Rebekah over the status of their relationship during a series of voice notes sent over Snapchat. Shortly before 9.45pm, she would reply: “I’ll be your mate, but I’m not getting into a relationship with you again. It’s toxic.”
Ormandy then sneaked his way into her apartment building after gaining entry via a back entrance. Once inside, he took the lift to a higher floor than her fifth-storey flat.
Making his way back down via the stairs, he was then seen on CCTV carefully opening and closing internal doors in order to avoid making any more noise than necessary. Outside her home, he lurked while she spoke on the phone to her friend Faye.
At 10.17pm, he said in another voice note: “Sitting there with Faye laughing and joking about me, are you?”. Rebekah replied: “Wtf you on about? See what I mean, paranoid to f***. Make it sound like you’re intimidating me again. Speak to you tomorrow.”
Ormandy was insistent, however, and would leave Rebekah a final audio message, in which he demanded: “No, speak to me now. Am I your fella or not?”
At 10.23pm, Rebekah replied with what would be her last text: “I’m not doing a toxic relationship again.”
Minutes later, Ormandy burst through her front door unannounced, in a bulletproof vest. Faye was still on the phone to Rebekah.
As Faye scrambled for help for her lifelong friend, Rebekah staggered out of her flat while shouting “I’ve been stabbed”. She managed to make her way into the lift, her top by now covered in blood, before collapsing on the ground outside the flats. Neighbours rushed to her aid. She told them: “My fella stabbed me.”
Upon her arrival at Knowsley Heights, Faye found Rebekah surrounded by emergency service workers who were fighting to save her life and later rushed her to hospital. She added: “That was the last time I ever seen her.”
In the back of the ambulance, a gravely injured Rebekah asked “am I gonna die?”. In spite of extensive efforts, she would ultimately be pronounced dead at 12.06am on April 16.
A post mortem examination subsequently found that Rebecca had been subjected to a “sustained, violent assault”, suffering 18 stab wounds and nine slash injuries, mostly concentrated on the left side of the body. A pathologist found that these were “in keeping with the use of severe force”, with injuries on her left arm also said to be “indicative of defence injuries as she tried to fend off an attack”.
Ormandy meanwhile fled towards his own flat on Linacre Road in Litherland along the towpath of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Before ditching his phone into the water, he made an alarming call to Merseyside Police’s 101 non-emergency number and delivered a disturbing rant, venting: “I’m the one that did it, I’m the one that did it, in self defence.
Armed officers eventually caught up with Ormandy in the area near to the Tesco supermarket in Litherland before leading him to nearby Bridge Road in handcuffs.
Having then been informed that Rebekah had sustained an estimated 20 stab wounds, Ormandy responded: “20 times? There’s no way. She must have stabbed herself. As soon as I walked in, she started attacking me. She had the knife ready. She can’t have been stabbed 20 times. No, that’s not even possible.”
By contrast, Ormandy had only suffered a single, relatively minor cut to his right index finger.
Six months on from Rebekah’s death, Ormandy stood trial at the Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts.
One kitchen knife was missing from an Asda set which was located in Ormandy’s home, he was also said to have left such an item into the hotel room which he had checked into earlier on the day of the murder. However, hotel staff disposed of the blade and police could not establish whether it was the murder weapon.
Ormandy conceded that it was most likely that, like his phone, he had also discarded of the knife in the canal. But it was never recovered, while he also claimed that he habitually carried such a weapon and wore a set of body armour as he was a cocaine dealer and needed to protect his trade.
Later asked how many of the 27 knife wounds he recalled inflicting upon Ms Campbell, Ormandy added: “One for definite. I don’t even know. I thought I was just punching her. I don’t remember having the knife.”
A guilty verdict was returned on Wednesday afternoon. The following day he was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 24 years behind bars.
