The judge said Ms Snoddy was stabbed more than 60 times

Conor Gerard Doyle, 23, of Limestone Road in Belfast, admitted stabbing Angela Snoddy more than 60 times at her home in Glenville Road, Whiteabbey, after a row in October 2002.

The chef was told at the city's Crown Court on Friday he must serve at least ten years of his life sentence.

With time already served in custody, this means a parole board could review his case after eight years.

Ms Snoddy's mother collapsed in grief after hearing the verdict, and had to be helped from the courthouse.

Prosecution QC Gordon Kerr earlier told the court that the couple had a "stormy" 18-month relationship.

At the time of the murder, their baby son was just seven-weeks-old, while a daughter Ms Snoddy had by a previous relationship was three-years-old.

Blood

Mr Kerr said on the night of the killing, police were called to a car crash in the Monkstown estate.

He said officers found Doyle there with "blood on his forehead, hands and arms".

When they asked him about it, he told them he "had stabbed his girlfriend and she was dead".

Doyle took the officers to Ms Snoddy's flat where they found her in the kitchen with extensive stab wounds.

During his sentencing remarks, Mr Justice Weir described the murder as a "frenzied attack upon a woman who, on your own case, had merely struck you some mild blows".

The judge said he stabbed her at least 66 times, as well as inflicting blunt trauma injuries and a broken nose that "could have been sustained as a result of forceful punches, kicking, stamping or the head being forced against a hard surface such as the ground".

"Clearly this was a sustained and merciless attack involving a great deal of brutal force," he added.

Her uncle, Colin Picken, said the family were "shocked" at the ten-year tariff, adding "he needs to be locked up for life and never let out".