A KILLER collapsed and sobbed in the dock yesterday after being found guilty of murdering a prostitute.

There were shouts from the public gallery as the jury at Teesside Crown Court delivered its verdict on Shaun Tuley, who was standing trial for the murder of vice-girl Kellie Mallinson.

Trial judge Mr Justice Jack sentenced Tuley, 31, of Mannion Court, South Bank, to life imprisonment and said: "There is only one sentence prescribed by the law for murder - life imprisonment - and that is the sentence I impose."

On the first day of the trial, Tuley cried as he told the jury he had killed Miss Mallinson and pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but said he had not murdered her.

Prosecutor Franz Muller QC rejected this plea and the case continued as a murder trial.

During the trial the prosecution said he had asphyxiated the North Ormesby prostitute, who he had picked up in September last year, in bushes near factory units on Middlesbrough's Cannon Park trading estate.

He had admitted having sex with the 20-year-old Miss Mallinson having paid her, but said he left her alive and well.

Tuley told the court Miss Mallinson had been his first experience of using a prostitute and claimed he had had no intention of either hurting or killing her, but had only applied pressure to her chest when she bit his arm.

Miss Mallinson's mother Hazel said her daughter had been led astray into the "murky world" of drugs, and as a child had been popular and clever, leaving Acklam Grange school with a string of high-grade GCSEs to work with computers, but fell under the influence of a teenage boy who led her into drugs.

She said: "Kellie was a sweet, intelligent girl with a ready smile who was always willing to help."

She said: "She will always be alive in my thoughts, she will always be the happy child with the ready smile."

Her father David said he thought his daughter had been deliberately targeted as she stood at under 5ft tall.

He said: "I have no feelings for him at all. I believe he deliberately targeted Kellie because of her size.

"I think he overpowered her and murdered her and as far as we are concerned life should mean life.

"This doesn't bring Kellie back, but it should serve as a warning to other parents to be aware of the drugs scene and of the dangers it brings.

"The only way to get the girls off the streets is to stamp down hard on drug dealers and suppliers.