A BOYFRIEND who slit his partner's throat after being freed on bail for an earlier attack was jailed for life today.

Stephen Newton, 38, inflicted an eight-inch wound after first strangling Nicola Morrin, 26, with a pair of her baby's tights in July last year.

As she bled to death on the living room floor, he confessed what he had done in a phone call to his sister, who called 999.

When police burst into the blood-soaked flat they found him watching TV, feet from his victims body. Miss Morrin's one-year-old daughter was asleep in the bedroom.

Newton, of Kirkston Avenue, Lemington, Newcastle, had admitted manslaughter on the grounds of provocation but denied murder.

But earlier today the jury took around five hours to find Newton guilty of murder following a three-week trial at Newcastle Crown Court.

Newton, 6ft 4in tall and weighing 17 stones, showed no emotion as the jury foreman returned the "guilty" verdict.

Jailing Newton for life with a minimum term of 15 years, Judge John Milford QC said: "You attacked her, you struck her about the head repeatedly, you strangled her with her child's tights and while she was unconscious you repeatedly cut her throat.

"She was 10 years younger than you and she was physically no match for you."

The judge said he could not accept Newton's version of events that he snapped after Miss Morrin blurted out he was not the father of her daughter - saying he already knew.

The court was told the attack was the culmination of an abusive seven-year relationship.

At the time, the sales rep was on bail over an attack he is alleged to have made two weeks earlier on Miss Morrin. It was a condition of his bail that he should not visit her flat in Bramwell Court, Gosforth, Newcastle.

Miss Morrin suffered wounds to her neck and arms, including an eight-inch cut the full width of her throat, which was more than two inches wide in places and had been inflicted with six or seven separate strikes.

She had also been asphyxiated, with the small pair of white tights, which belonged to her daughter.

Bruising to her face and head suggested she had been punched, kicked or stamped on.