The heartbroken widow of a pensioner stabbed to death by an Islamic terrorist has spoken of the devastating impact his loss has had on his family.

Terrence Carney was callously attacked by Ahmed Ali Alid as he took his regular early morning walk around Hartlepool.

The horrendous attack was captured on CCTV as the 45-year-old Moroccan asylum seeker sought brutal revenge for the Israel assault in Gaza.

Teesside Crown Court heard how the 70-year-old is dearly missed by his family who have been left heartbroken by his murder.

In a powerful victim impact statement, Patricia Carney told Teesside Crown Court how the couple had been married for 50 years and how her husband, lovingly known as Tess, was a "creature of habit".

“He loved to look after us,” she said. “Every Sunday he would cook a Sunday dinner. He continued to do this even when we’d stopped living together.

“I didn’t always go down for them, but our daughter Nicola, and our granddaughter would. There was always one of us there with him, seven days a week, he was never on his own.”

The Northern Echo: CCTV footage of Ahmed Ali Alid wandering the streets of Hartlepool armed with a knife moments before murdering Terrence Carney.CCTV footage of Ahmed Ali Alid wandering the streets of Hartlepool armed with a knife moments before murdering Terrence Carney. (Image: Counter Terrorism Policing North East)

Dealing with the devastation of learning about her husband’s murder, she said: “From that day on my life would be forever changed. Things would never be the same again.

“I don’t feel anything anymore, I have lost everything. I am thankful that I am the age I am, I know that I don’t have to live with this hurt, this pain and this sadness that I am feeling now for too long. If I was younger and had many more years left to feel as I do right now, I’m not sure how I would cope.

“I still talk to Tess and tell him things as though he is still with me. If something like this had happened to anyone else, I would have gone straight down to his to talk to him about it.

“As a family we are all trying to get through this as best we can, it has affected all of us.”

She added: “My life will never be the same again and this will never truly be over, but now, I’m hoping things will start to get easier, and I am hoping that I might be able to breathe again and somehow get my life back on track, I have to, it’s what Tess would want.”

The Northern Echo: Ahmed Ali AlidAhmed Ali Alid (Image: Counter Terrorism Policing North East)

Alid, of Wharton Terrace, Hartlepool, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Mr Carney and attempted murder of his housemate Javed Nouri.

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He suffered multiple stab wounds, including two to his chest, before he managed to fight off his assailant and throw him out of his room.

In his victim impact statement, Mr Nouri said: “Since this incident I don't have a normal life. I do not trust anyone or anything. I all the time think and feel that I will be attacked again. All of my thoughts and feelings of here being a safe country have gone.

“Maybe in my homeland I would be killed easier, but not this way. I would expect to be arrested and possibly executed for converting to Christianity in my home country.

“I did not expect to be attacked in my sleep here. I don't feel safe here anymore.”