Fiancee strangler jailed for life

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A man who murdered his teenage fiancee by strangling her during a drunken row has been jailed for life.

Welder Joseph Henderson, 21, was found guilty of murdering policeman's daughter Pamela Knight, 18, at his Lanarkshire home in February.

He was ordered to spend a minimum of 12 years behind bars before being allowed to apply for parole.

Judge Lord Hodge said: "You destroyed the life of a young woman on the threshold of her adulthood."

Henderson, who stands at 6ft 1in, attacked Ms Knight, a student nurse, from Motherwell, so severely that he fractured cartilage in her neck.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard how the couple were infatuated with each other but were incompatible.

'Pointless tragedy'

Lord Hodge told the court there was evidence that Henderson had drunk 10 pints on the night in question.

He said: "It appears to me the fact is that once again alcohol abuse lies behind another pointless tragedy."

Last month, jurors at the High Court in Glasgow took less than two hours to find Henderson guilty of the murder in his home at Station House, Bellside Road, Cleland, on 4 February.

The nine women and six men of the jury returned their majority verdict despite being urged to find him guilty of the lesser offence of culpable homicide.

Henderson had denied murder and his legal team claimed he had not intended to kill Miss Knight.