A FAMILY have spoken of their anguish after the killer of their loved one appealed against his sentence, causing them extra "hell".

The appeal by builder Adrian Michael Rodi was heard at the High Court in London just a week before the second anniversary of Angela Rider’s death in Cawood, near Selby, on March 4, 2018.

A spokesperson for North Yorkshire Police said the force was aware that the appeal was dismissed at the Court of Appeal on February 26 and that the judges upheld the decisions made by the trial judge.

Rodi, 52, strangled the 51-year-old property developer at the home they shared in the village and was sentenced to life involving a hybrid hospital and prison order.

His trial at Leeds Crown Court heard that it was the fourth time he had violently attacked her.

Rodi, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, was sentenced to life with a hospital order in November 2018 and told he must spend at least nine years and 114 days behind bars.

But he challenged the sentence, a move which Angela’s sister Tracy Mills said had caused the family extra pain.

“It’s causing our family hell,” she said. “We want to see him get punished and justice and we’re not getting it.”

She said it did not help that the hearing was held the week before the second anniversary of Angela’s death.

She said that she had been told that Rodi was not working with those looking after him in Newton Lodge secure psychiatric unit, which meant he could not be transferred to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence.

“He had to spend time in a mental hospital and when better was meant to be transferred to prison for the punishment part of the sentence.

“He’s not working with them which is delaying it and just putting it off.”

She said that the police liaison officer looking after them had said that the appeal judges had decided the sentence was very just.

During his trial, the court was told that Rodi had previously strangled Ms Rider in Greece and pushed her face into a pillow during their honeymoon in Thailand.

He was convicted in 2014 of causing actual bodily harm to Ms Rider by strangling her until she blacked out.

His mental illness worsened until the day he killed Ms Rider, laid her out on a sofa in her home in Chestnut Road, Cawood, rang the police to say what he had done and fled to the Lake District.

Psychiatrists said Rodi, of Chestnut Road, Cawood, suffered from severe depression with psychosis.