A man has been jailed for hiding the dead body of his partner in an airing cupboard -for over a YEAR. 

Andrew Reade, 43, had claimed mum-of-three Victoria Cherry had gone to live with an ex-boyfriend, was living with her mum and that she was in hospital. 

But in fact her rotting body was found wrapped in a duvet and plastic sheeting next to the boiler in the first floor flat they shared together. 

Bolton Crown Court, Lancs., heard the pair were heavy drug users addicted to heroin and Reade had woke from a binge to find Ms Cherry lying "cold and stiff" across his chest. 

He claimed to have "panicked" after the pair had taken drugs together at their home in Bolton, Lancs., and later lied to friends and family to where she was for 15 months. 

The body remained in the small room until it was discovered by police on their third visit to the property in January 2017. 

He then repeatedly lied about Ms Cherry's whereabouts to her family, her pharmacist, a mutual friend and the police following her death - which is thought to have happened around October 2015. 

Reade was sentenced to four years and four months in prison after pleading guilty for preventing a lawful and decent burial and perverting the course of public justice. 

His Honour Judge Clayson, the honorary recorder of Bolton, said: "Whilst you can't be held responsible for her death, what you then did with her body and how you behaved over a period of 15 months thereafter was inexcusable. 

"You proceeded on a mission of deceit and told lie after lie in order to keep them from the truth. 

"You anticipated there would be many questions to answer if you revealed her death." 

A post-mortem carried out on Ms Cherry's body found evidence of fractures to her left cheek, nose and larynx, but the 'highly decomposed' nature of the body made it impossible to establish whether these were related to her death.