A former kebab shop worker who murdered his ex-girlfriend with cling film and masking tape in a fit of jealousy was today jailed for life.

Killer Ahsan Hassan - known as "Ali" – stalked the young mother days before her death after becoming enraged when he discovered his victim had engaged in "mild sexual activity" with his childhood friend.

CCTV footage shown during the trial showed the "utterly fixated" 28-year-old hiding behind bins to stalk Zofia Sadowska in Eden Shopping Centre weeks before he carried her "limp and completely floppy" body out of the disused Dennis’s takeaway shop and into a taxi.

Jurors were told Hassan admitted manslaughter by killing the 20-year-old in what he described as part of a lovers' suicide pact, but always denied murder.

Hassan had stood in the dock with his childhood friend from Pakistan, Usmar Ansar, who was accused of lying to police to protect his friend after feeling "very guilty" about having sexual relations with Ms Sadowska behind his back.

A jury took just five hours and nine minutes to unanimously convict Hassan guilty of murder and he was today sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 24 years.

His 40-year-old co-accused was cleared of perverting the course of justice.

Officers and paramedics found Hassan in a pool of blood with deep self-inflicted cuts to his wrist next to Zofia's body in his bedroom at his home in Dashwood Avenue on September 20, 2016.

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Two days before on September 18 at around 11.30pm, Hassan tricked his former lover to go to the Dennis’s kebab shop in Gayhurst Road, Micklefield, where he had worked previously and still had the keys for, despite it being closed.

After murdering her in the takeaway, at around 2am he took her and put her into a waiting taxi, convincing the driver she was drunk and asleep and travelled to his home.

Emergency services were called just after 5am on September 19, to a report of an attempted suicide and Hassan told officers that it was a suicide pact in a bid to try and cover up what he had done.

Ahsan was sentenced to a minimum of 24 years in jail, minus the 200 days he has already spent in custody, and will remain on licence for the rest of his life.

Sentencing Judge Johanna Cutts said: "You inflicted mental and physical suffering on Zofia before her death.

“She must have been terrified when she came to realise what was happening in that place where nobody could find her.

"Having killed Zofia you realised you could not leave her there so you calmly took her body back to your address, claiming to the taxi driver that she was just drunk.

She added: "You have shown not a shred of remorse, even trying to persuade the jury that you killed her in pursuance of a suicide pact."

Judge Cutts told Reading Crown Court how Ahsan invented a fictional party "like in the movies" as a way of luring Zofia to the disused kebab shop, which was closed while the owner planned to negotiate a new lease.

He even went to the trouble of buying another SIM card to text his normal number from a number saved as "Rob best mate".

Rob, Ahsan told Zofia, would drive them from the kebab shop - where he had earlier taken masking tape, cling film and a net curtain - to the party.

"If Zofia asked you would be able to show her the texts," she added. "You even went to the lengths of asking other friends from you friendship group to the party.

"One agreed to come and sent you his address so you could pick him up. You did of course not do so."

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Defending Diana Ellis QC told how had fled his native Pakistan when his family tried to force him to marry his cousin against his wish.

"He came to the UK in 2011 to escape a very difficult family environment," she said. "He come from a family not with financial resources and his father is the oldest of the brothers but within the family younger brothers had a great influence.

"There was a significant amount of pressure put on Mr Hassan that he should marry his cousin but this was something he refused to do and consequently he was quite badly treated by his family and fled to this country to escape that environment."

Senior investigating officer, detective inspector Stuart Blaik of Thames Valley Police's Major Crime Unit, said: "I am pleased that Hassan has been convicted for his crimes.

"Hassan was deeply controlling, manipulative and consumed with jealousy. He evilly planned to murder Zofia and then showed cowardice when he tried to cover up his crime by falsely claiming that both he and Zofia had wished to commit suicide.

"Hassan has never admitted his crimes, which has made dealing with the loss of Zofia even more of a terrible ordeal for her family. I would like to pay tribute to Zofia's family for their courage throughout."