A 23-year-old Thanet man has been jailed for life for the savage stabbing of a "big gentle giant".

Richard McAuley attacked father-of-five Mark Miles after he confronted him about comments made to his wife at a drunken gathering.

McAuley accepted he had killed Mr Miles at a friend's flat in Margate, but said he had no memory of the incident in October last year.

He denied murder but members of the jury took just one hour to return a guilty verdict last week.

Today, senior judge David Griffith-Jones QC, in passing a mandatory life sentence for the brutal killing, said he believed it had been a conscientious decision to block out what he had done that night.

He said: "The evidence against you was overwhelming. You behaved in a juvenile and immature manner that evening; making sexual remarks against the two women present and touching one of the women in an uninvited and unwanted manner."

Mr Miles remonstrated with drunken McAuley, who smashed a bottle containing Sambuca and used the jagged edge to stab his victim in the head and neck, severing an artery.

The judge added: "Your action was a gross over reaction: extreme and inexcusable. I don't accept you were provoked. You have destroyed a family."

He then ruled that McAuley, who has a previous conviction for assaulting an emergency worker, would have to serve a minimum of 15 years and 82 days before he will be eligible for parole.

As he was led away to the cells, members of his family sitting in the public gallery at Maidstone Crown Court shouted: "Love you, Rich."

McAuley, of Northdown Road, Cliftonville , had pleaded not guilty to murder, telling the jury: "I accept I killed my friend. I just cannot remember anything."

He was also convicted of wounding Mr Miles' wife Vicky and received a concurrent six years sentence.

"The person responsible was someone we allowed into our home and someone we treated as a friend..."

In a victim impact statement she said: "Mark was many things to many people a husband to me and father and step father to five children.

"The person responsible was someone we allowed into our home and someone we treated as a friend."

She revealed that as a result of the murder, the family is now suffering financial difficulties as a result. One of Victoria's young children has now been given a bear with Mark's ashes in its heart which he sprays his aftershave over and sleeps with it each night.

She said Mark was popular in his community and many regarded him as a "big gentle giant".

McAuley claimed he couldn't recall being with Mark and Vicky, or drinking Sambuca and said: "It maybe my brain doesn't want to remember and is blocking it out. " Police bodyworn footage of McAuley at the police station recorded him saying: "I''ll cut him up. I'll slice him."

And when told Mr Miles had died, McAuley replied: "Good, good..blah, blah, blah...he deserved it."

Mrs Miles had told the jury how McAuley had smashed the bottle against the chair before plunging it into her husband.

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