Double killer is jailed for life

Police say Sarah Jane Coughlan died from stab wounds

A man who killed his wife and then murdered a prostitute 17 years later has been jailed for life.

George Leigers was convicted of the murder of Sarah Jane Coughlan after a two-week trial at Teesside Crown Court.

The trial heard how Leigers, 47, was convicted of the manslaughter of his wife Rita, 30, in 1986.

Leigers, who denied murder but claimed the killing was manslaughter by diminished responsibility, was told the sentence would mean life by the judge.

The trial heard Leigers spent 16 years in a secure mental unit and home for the chronic mentally ill after he was convicted over his wife's death.

Detained for life

He had only been free for six months when he killed 19-year-old Sarah Jane Coughlan.

He stabbed her with a bayonet at his home on Montrose Street, Middlesbrough, in August 2003.

He left her body hidden under a duvet on his bed and five days later he surrendered to police in Inverness.

The judge, the Recorder of Middlesbrough Peter Fox QC, told Leigers that for the public's safety the life sentence had to mean life.

Leigers will now be held in the top security Rampton Hospital.