A CONVICTED murderer who tried to smash his way into a terrified Bradford couple’s home with a crowbar is back behind bars.

Gordon McFetrich, who served 21 years in prison for savagely stabbing his wife to death, was enraged that his neighbours had “bad mouthed” him and spread untrue gossip that he was a paedophile, Bradford Crown Court heard on Thursday.

McFetrich, 58, of Ledbury Place, East Bowling, Bradford, shouted outside the couple’s door and attacked it with the crowbar, causing £600 damage.

The elderly couple barricaded themselves into their property with a sofa because they feared McFetrich was about to break in.

Police officers called to the scene on December 1 last year had to draw a Taser and take McFetrich to the ground to arrest him, prosecutor Danielle Gilmour told the court.

McFetrich, who has been recalled to prison on life licence, was originally charged with attempting to enter the property as a trespasser with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm but his guilty plea to the lesser offence of affray was accepted by the Crown. He also admitted an offence of criminal damage.

Miss Gilmour said that McFetrich was jailed for life in 1995 for murdering his wife and had spent 21 years behind bars. His barrister, Camille Morland, said McFetrich moved to a flat in Bradford and believed his victims knew about his conviction and were spreading malicious gossip, calling him a paedophile and spying on him.

Miss Morland said McFetrich did not intend to hurt the couple. He wanted the man to come outside to have a fight with him. McFetrich, who wore dark glasses for the court hearing and styled his long grey hair in a pony tail, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoid personality disorder, the court heard. He believed the couple were provoking him.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC, made a restraining order banning McFetrich from contacting the couple, and ordered him to serve two years in jail. “It is a serious breakdown by you of your behaviour,” the judge said. He told McFetrich the couple would have been very frightened by his potentially dangerous show of temper. “You know the system perhaps almost, if not better, than myself and life licence carries heavy responsibilities.”

McFetrich, a former social worker, was originally ordered to serve a minimum of eight years in jail for stabbing his estranged wife, Jacqueline, to death in Scotland in November 1994. He stabbed her 16 times after tracing her to a women’s refuge and then to a flat in Stirling. The couple’s two young sons were in the flat at the time. One witnessed the murder while the other cowered in a cupboard listening to what was going on.

The minimum term McFetrich had to spend behind bars was increased in 2006 when he asked to be transferred from Scotland to an English jail.