Killer is handed life sentence after being found in Spain

A MAN who killed his girlfriend in her Westbourne Green home, and then evaded justice for 15 years by fleeing the country, was today sentenced to life in prison.

Miguel Da Silva, 40, was found guilty of murdering the 44-year-old mother of his two children, Susan Joyce Martin, at her Aldridge Road Villas flat in September 1994.

Portuguese national Da Silva will serve a minimum of 16 years after being sentenced at the Old Bailey this morning.

The day after the killing in 1994, Da Silva walked into Paddington Green police station with blood on his hands and confessed he had had a fight with Ms Martin and had beaten her up.

He was arrested and remanded to a secure medical facility but, after being charged with murder and while awaiting trial, he scaled a wall and escaped in March 1995 after patients were evacuated due to a fire alarm alert.

Da Silva was finally traced to Spain and extradited to the UK earlier this year where he was arrested and charged with murder.

The victim’s daughter, Sarah Martin, said: “I have been in limbo for the past sixteen years. It still feels like it happened yesterday and I feel the same rawness as I felt then.

“It is fair to say that when my mother was killed, our family fell apart.”