DJ jailed for killing love rival

A disc jockey has been jailed for six years for stabbing a love rival to death in the home of his former girlfriend and children.

Donald Thompson stabbed Patrick Shakespeare repeatedly in his neck and back before leaving him to die on the sofa.

The 31-year-old from Nottingham, known as DJ Lyrical, was found guilty of manslaughter by reason of provocation by a jury at Leicester Crown Court on Friday.

He had denied murder claiming he acted in self-defence.

Cab home

The argument in January started when Mr Shakespeare visited the home of his girlfriend, Natalie Baldwin, to find Thompson in the living room.

Ms Baldwin and a friend, Tammy Hoskins, had been out to the Media club in Nottingham, where her ex-lover, Thompson, was working as a DJ.

Ms Baldwin and Thompson, the father of her three young children, later caught a cab back to her home in Broxtowe Road, Nottingham.

What you did was a gross over-reaction and another man has lost his life in consequence

Mr Justice Hunt

As they got in the house, they found their two eldest children, aged seven and five, were still up.

A little while later, Mr Shakespeare, the father of Ms Baldwin's fourth and youngest child, arrived.

A scuffle began between Mr Shakespeare and the defendant and Ms Baldwin pulled her two children out of the room.

She returned to find Mr Shakespeare, 32, lying on the settee surrounded with blood.

'Good beating'

Police and paramedics were called and Mr Shakespeare was pronounced dead at hospital.

Thompson handed himself to police the next day.

Sentencing Thompson to six years imprisonment, Mr Justice Hunt said there had been previous incidents between the two men.

He told Thompson: "You killed a rival lover of your ex-girlfriend when you returned to spend the night with her and he arrived.

"He attacked you with his fists and no doubt with the intention of giving you a good beating.

"You produced a knife and stabbed him with it 10 times.

"What you did was a gross over-reaction and another man has lost his life in consequence."