A car dealer who strangled his partner and then set her on fire after she told him she was leaving him was jailed for life today.

Alan Jermey, 41, a martial arts expert, knocked Kirsty Wilson out with a 100,000 volt stun gun before killing her at their four-bedroom home as their two children slept upstairs.

He then doused her face and neck with petrol before setting her alight to cover his tracks.

As the flames took hold of their home in Woking, Surrey, he woke his two daughters and called 999 to report the blaze as they escaped onto a flat roof, but it was not until two minutes into the call that he mentioned that his partner was still in the building.

He was “obsessive” about Ms Wilson, an executive at Mercedes, and could not stand to let her go, the Old Bailey was told.

He was told he would serve at least 16 years in jail after being found guilty by a jury of murder.

When Miss Wilson told Jermey in May last year that she planned to leave him for her married boss, he at first seemed to have calmly accepted it.

They stayed together in the house and made arrangements for the split.

Jermey, who was several thousand pounds in debt, killed his partner the night before their property was due to go on the market in August last year. He was also to lose custody of his children.

Jermey, who has a black belt in kung fu, arranged her body to make it look as though she had fallen asleep watching television.

He claimed he was prevented from going to save her by thick black smoke but when firefighters arrived, they found there were only a few wisps and noticed he seemed calm and unconcerned about what had happened after they rescued him and his daughters.

He had also removed the smoke alarm before the incident.

Times Recommends

• Secret files show Thatcher's role in coup plot
• Veterans to boycott Shell after ban on poppy sales
• 'I survived so please let Baby RB live too'