A 49-year-old man has been found guilty of stabbing his former partner to death in a prison car park.

Keith Prest, unemployed and of no fixed address, had denied murdering Louise Evans at the women's prison where she worked in 2007.

The 48-year-old teacher, from Hothfield, near Ashford, was knifed 43 times during the frenzied attack outside East Sutton Park open prison, near Maidstone, in September last year.

Prest was jailed for life on Monday,and will serve a minimum of 16 years.

Listen - DCI John Coull reads a statement from the family of Louise Evans

The mother-of-two taught English to foreign inmates at the prison and had just finished a day's work.

The court heard that all of Miss Evans' major organs - heart, left lung, liver, spleen and kidneys - were penetrated.

Her body lay undiscovered for an hour before being found by another worker at the women's prison.

Prosecutor Alan Kent said that three-times married Miss Evans met Prest in September 2005 through text dating.

Within two weeks they were living together, but the relationship was soon beset by violence and Prest became "controlling and obsessive". The couple split in the summer of last year.

The jury of nine men and three women heard in the days leading up to the killing Prest made numerous phone calls to Miss Evans and left notes on her car and at her home. At the time of the murder he was on bail, having been accused of assaulting her.

Prest, of no fixed address, denies murder, claiming he was not the attacker. Prest did not give evidence during the trial.

There were no witnesses to the stabbing and the scene was not covered by CCTV.

Two inmates described hearing screams around the open jail about the time Miss Evans was killed.

One said she was watching an episode of Midsomer Murders when she heard three screams, one of them "piercing", and the words: Get off me, get off me."

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