Kenneth Petfield grabbed his teenage lover’s arms and went “blood-red”, shaking her and saying “if you tell anybody I will kill you and your family”

A house in an idyllic middle-class Sheffield street harboured a grisly secret in the spring of 1998 - and it’s discovery unearthed the appalling murder of a wealthy scrap dealer by her adulterous other half.

On April 20 that year, detectives entered the garage of the large, detached and extended home which still stands on Stanley Road, Burncross, and found the head of Susan Craven encased in a two-foot concrete block.

The gruesome discovery was made on Stanley Road, Burncross, Sheffield Crown Court heard | Iconic/Google

placeholder image — The gruesome discovery was made on Stanley Road, Burncross, Sheffield Crown Court heard | Iconic/Google

Investigations led them there after Craven’s partner, 50-year-old Kenneth Peatfield, was charged with her murder following her disappearance the previous month - on March 5.

One officer involved in the case said in his Sheffield Crown Court evidence: "Nobody could believe it when the full head was found - even the most hardened detectives were utterly appalled.”

Peatfield, who had a 17-year-old lover at the time, had told police he planned to use the block as part of a patio feature.

On the witness stand, the officer said: “There had been the odd quip made about the block but nobody really believed there was anything suspicious about it.

"When we decided to split it open, we thought there could be a fragment of bone in there at most.”

Pathologist Professor Michael Green said Susan’s head was likely severed with a power saw.

Two days after 54-year-old Susan’s disappearance Peatfield led his teenage girlfriend into a shed at the shared house, showing her Mrs Craven’s body under a blue tarpaulin sheet and saying: "I did it so I could be with you."

Giving evidence at Peatfield’s trial the then 18-year-old said the consultant engineer grabbed both of her arms and went “blood-red”, shaking her and saying “if you tell anybody I will kill you and your family”.

Peatfield denied murder - admitting he stood to gain financially from Mrs Craven's death but denying killing her - however during a three-week trial jurors heard this was not the first time he had been before the courts.

Shockingly, he had previously been jailed for 10 years after hiring a hitman to kill his wife and 10-year-old daughter - in whose names he had taken out insurance policies which would pay out £50,000.

But the callous plot failed when the hitman backed out and went to the police.

Susan’s disappearance was reported to police by friends, who were told she had had left him after an argument.

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In the 1999 trial the court heard before the discovery of the concrete block, bloodstains were found at the Stanley Road house during a police search.

However the rest of the body was never found.

Peatfield had told teenage girlfriend he planned to send parts of the remains to separate locations.

Peatfield was jailed for life.