A NORTH-EAST woman who fell in love with a convicted murderer has announced she is to marry him.

Murderer Keith Mawhinney, 21, proposed to Anna Degnan during a recent prison visit.

The couple fell in love after Miss Degnan, 30, from Sunderland, agreed to write to Mawhinney as part of a prisoner penpal scheme.

Mawhinney and his father, John, 48, received a life sentence in December 1998 for beating Hartlepool man Anthony Clark, 33, to death with pickaxe handles.

Both have been granted leave to appeal.

If the appeal does not prove successful, mother-of-two Miss Degnan faces a wait of at least 12 years before her future husband is considered for parole.

Mawhinney proposed to Miss Degnan last Monday, at Long Lartin Prison, in Worcestershire.

It was only the third time the couple had met face-to-face.

Yesterday, Miss Degnan described how she burst into tears when Mawhinney bent down on one knee to propose for the second time.

She said: "I cried buckets. It's so beautiful. He asked if I would do him the honour of being his wife, and I said of course I would. I love him to bits."

Miss Degnan, who is unemployed, has two children, Michael, 12, and Daniel, four. Her previous fiance, Roger Newton, died suddenly in 1998.