A jealous ex-boyfriend is expected to be jailed for life today for the kidnap, torture and murder of a young Polish waitress. Monika Szmecht had hoped to make a new life in Britain but died at the hands of Anthony Clarke.

Clarke, 27, had kept her caged in the back of his van for four hours before driving to a remote spot, where he stabbed her repeatedly, doused her with petrol and set her alight. Miss Szmecht, 21, managed to crawl 150 yards along a country lane in Rainford, Merseyside, to summon help from the occupants of a cottage. Before dying, she told paramedics that her boyfriend had attacked her.

Clarke, owner of a taxi company, from West Derby, Liverpool, was found guilty at Liverpool Crown Court yesterday of murder. The former soldier remained impassive in the dock when the verdict was delivered by the jury but turned to wink at the mother of his three children who was sobbing in the public gallery.

Kaline Adamska, the sister of Miss Szmecht, hugged the police liaison officer sitting beside her. The jury had been told that Clarke had been violent towards Miss Szmecht during their year-long relationship and she had reported him to police. Andrew Menary, QC, for the prosecution, said that Clarke had ended the relationship and had asked her to leave the home they shared. Although the relationship was at an end he remained jealous of her friendships with other men and refused to allow her to see them.

Mr Menary told the jury it was in that atmosphere that Miss Szmecht made a naive and “out of character” blackmail attempt. She is said to have demanded £1,000 from Clarke to withdraw a police statement about how he had broken a bone in her hand and threatened to burn down her flat.

Clarke had told her he would pay the money and they agreed to meet near her new home in the Croxteth area of the city on June 11 last year. Instead, Clarke forced her into his van, locked her inside a cage in the back and left her inside for four hours with the car alarm sounding while it was parked at his garage business. He later drove her to Blindfoot Road, near the village of Rainford, St Helens.

Clarke was originally charged with murder alongside his uncle, David Clarke, 46, of Walton, Liverpool, and friend Philip Savin, 29, of Bootle. On the day the trial was due to begin, Savin and David Clarke agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges and give evidence for the prosecution.

Savin described how Anthony Clarke became increasingly angry that Ms Szmecht, who worked in the Bar Italia restaurant in Liverpool city centre, was receiving text messages from a man. It was established later that the man was not a new lover but her landlord.

Savin helped Clarke to force Ms Szmecht, who was originally from Kloda, near Leszno, Poland, into the van and terrified her by holding a container of petrol in front of her while she was trapped in the vehicle.

David Clarke, who is also a business partner of Anthony Clarke, told the court that his nephew confessed the murder to him the next day and it was he who arranged for all evidence of the hostage ordeal to be removed. He has pleaded guilty to assisting an offender and Savin pleaded guilty to kidnap, making threats and assisting an offender.

Clarke told the jury that the idea of blackmail must have come from the “gangster” boyfriend of Miss Szmecht.

Merseyside Police put armed officers around the court building for the verdict because Clarke was thought to have links with the criminal underworld of Liverpool.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Dale, who led the investigation, said: “Monika ... agreed to meet with Clarke on the afternoon of June 11. We do not know exactly what happened to her after that, until she turned up, seeking help in Blindfoot Road at 9pm, brutally stabbed and set alight. It was a truly brutal and tragic end to a young life.”

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