A “DANGEROUS, evil man” who stabbed his model girlfriend to death at their home was today starting a life sentence behind bars.

Ricardo Morrison, aged 22, killed Amy Barnes by stabbing her repeatedly with a knife.

Cruel Morrison even slashed the 19-year-old’s face to disfigure her pretty looks.

Sentencing Morrison to life and a minimum 24 years in prison, the judge, Mr Justice Alistair MacDuff, said: “You are dangerous beyond words.

“You are an evil man with nothing to commend you.

“You are the worst type of bully — a bully who will hit and injure anyone who gets in his way, particularly women and particularly women you are in a relationship with.”

In a two week trial Manchester Crown Court heard how “violent bully” Morrison — who had a conviction for attacking a previous girlfriend — would subject Amy to physical and mental abuse.

He constantly demanded to know where she was and who with, and would often explode with rage at the home they shared in Moss Street, Farnworth.

Then on November 8 last year he finally took young Amy’s life — just days before she was due to meet with domestic violence workers from Bolton refuge Fortalice.

On the morning of her death, Amy told friends that Morrison had attacked her and sprayed aerosol in her face and slammed her arm in a door.

Morrison went into Bolton to go to the bank and Amy sent him a text message saying that their relationship was over.

She then contacted Vodafone to have his mobile cut off.

This enraged Morrison who returned to kill her.

But unknown to Amy, he had locked her in the house.

Mr Justice MacDuff explained: “She was petrified and spent the last half hour of her life trying to secure rescue.

“You knifed her in the most horrific way. It is difficult to imagine what was going through her mind at that time when she knew you had been riled and would come for revenge and whether she could escape in time.”

She called her parents asking to be picked up because she was frightened.

But before they arrived, Morrison went back to the house where he grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed her repeatedly before running off.

A dying Amy managed to dial 999 and told the operator that she had been stabbed by her boyfriend and begged for help.

Her father, Andrew Barnes, arrived at the house just minutes later.

He found Amy at the foot of the stairs in a pool of blood and she was taken to hospital where she died a short while later.

Morrison always claimed he arrived at the bank and realised he had left his ID at home so he went back to the house to get it but when he arrived he found Amy already injured.

He said that he panicked and put her in the recovery position before leaving her.

He said he went to church to pray that she would be OK, before heading to his mother’s house in Birmingham.

But the jury did not believe his story and after six hours of deliberating found him guilty.

As the verdict was read out Morrison, of Moss Street, Farnworth, held his head in his hands and looked at the ground.

Morrison’s mother, Melda Wilks, aged 50, of Holly Hill Road, Birmingham, who was cleared of assisting an offender, stood in the dock beside her son.

She wept as she was acquitted — then collapsed in the dock as her son was led away.

Mr Justice MacDuff also revealed he had wept as he read a victim impact statement from Amy’s mother.

And he said no one who had heard the tape of Amy’s frantic 999 call, or seen pictures of her attacked body and face, would ever forget the “wickedness” of Morrison’s attack.

Speaking outside court Mrs Killiner said: “Ricardo Morrison stole our daughter and destroyed our lives. Knowing that he is in jail and can’t hurt another woman brings some comfort to us.”

Det Ch Supt Jane Antrobus added: “This was a brutal murder. This needs to be a lesson to be learned for anyone in a domestic violence relationship. Do not suffer in silence, come forward and seek help.”