Fingerprints lead police to woman's killer

Miguel da Silva, who was caught after a "cold case" review, will serve at least 16 years behind bars for murdering mother-of-two Susan Martin in west London.

The asylum seeker, described as "possessive and controlling", throttled his 44-year-old lover the day before she planned to leave him to go back to Manchester.

Judge Richard Hone told him: "It must have been a terrifying ordeal. You took her life because you were determined that only you should possess her.

"You are a serious and continuing danger to women in general."

Ms Martin's body was discovered face down with a beige cloth tied tightly around her neck in her bedroom in Notting Hill, west London, in September 1994.

Da Silva, an Angolan who was 24 at the time, handed himself in to police and was remanded to secure accommodation in Ealing Hospital for an assessment of his mental health.

Despite being jailed before for rape and a similar attack, he was not identified until officers sent his fingerprints to Spain.