THE leader of an all-female Hell's Angels biker gang has been found guilty of murdering her love rival's next-door neighbour.

Dressed in a white cloak and wearing a Halloween mask, Heather Stephenson-Snell, 46, shot Robert Wilkie, 43, in the stomach with a sawn-off shotgun.

A jury found her guilty of one count of murder and one count of attempted murder.

Mr Justice Wakerley sentenced her to life imprisonment, to serve a minimum of 22 years.

On Halloween night last year, Stephenson-Snell, of York, donned a mask and ghost costume and drove to Radcliffe, Manchester, to kill Diane Lomax, the girlfriend of her former lover, Adrian Sinclair. The defendant met Mr Sinclair when he replied to her advert in the Big Issue looking for a live-in dog-sitter, Manchester Crown Court was told.

She hired Mr Sinclair, a former stripper who appeared in sex videos, to look after her two rottweilers, and they became involved in a relationship.

They later separated when Stephenson-Snell, a psychotherapist who suffers from a personality disorder, decided he was unsuitable to look after her dogs.

When he became involved with Ms Lomax, Stephenson-Snell bombarded the couple with abusive phone calls and death threats.

On October 31 last year, she drove to Ms Lomax's home, concealing a sawn-off shotgun under her costume.

When Stephenson-Snell arrived at Ms Lomax's home, she knocked on the door.

Mr Sinclair refused to speak to her, but the defendant continued to knock.

Neighbour Robert Wilkie came outside to see what the noise was and tried to pull Stephenson-Snell's mask off.

She shot him at point blank range in the stomach and he died almost immediately.

Police stopped her as she drove along the M62 towards her home in Crombie Avenue, York. They found a bloodstained sheet and a shotgun in her car.

In an earlier hearing Charles Chruszcz, prosecuting, said Stephenson-Snell was obsessed with Mr Sinclair and full of hate towards Ms Lomax.

The defendant, who claimed her father wrote the novel The Wicker Man and was a British spy, had denied the charges of murder and attempted murder.

Sentencing her to life imprisonment, Mr Justice Wakerley said: "I note that you have shown absolutely no hint of remorse at what you have done."