KILLER Mark Redwood showed "no real remorse or regret" for the murder of ex-partner Natalie Jenkins, a judge said yesterday.

A jury at Newport crown court yesterday found Redwood, 31, guilty of killing the mother-of-one at his home in Almond Avenue, Ty Sign, Risca, last July.

After the verdict, Judge John Griffith Williams, QC, told Redwood - who once cut off one of his own little fingers before giving it to a former fiance's father in a matchbox with her engagement ring - he had shown "no real remorse or regret" for "a ferocious and sustained attack."

The judge added: "Natalie Jenkins lived an undoubtedly troubled life towards the end of her days - she was the victim of abuse in her marriage. You knew of this vulnerability.

"You are a controlling man and I have no doubt you gave her cocaine."

The trial heard how Redwood, a postman in Newport for four years, was accused of trying to control Natalie with drugs because of her "amphetamine problem."

The judge told him Mrs Jenkins was not interested in resuming their relationship.

He said: "You have a violent temper and when she was upset, you armed yourself with a knife and followed her upstairs and attacked her in the back bedroom."

Patrick Harrington, QC, said in mitigation, the case had the aggravating factor of a child being "deprived of a mother and with effectively no prospect she would see her father again either."

Mrs Jenkins died as a result of multiple stab wounds from a carving knife to her chest, neck and back.

Redwood claimed he killed 24-year-old Mrs Jenkins because she provoked him during a heated argument about their daughter.

He also claimed Mrs Jenkins had said she was only using him because of his money.

But prosecutor Nicholas Cooke, QC, branded Redwood "a devious, manipulative, cold-blooded and self-centred liar."

Redwood and Mrs Jenkins first met when he was aged 21 and she was 16.

They had a seven-year relationship which Redwood said had been "wonderful - we were both very much in love with each other."