A gardener who battered his teacher lover to death after discovering she was having an affair with another man has been jailed for life today for her murder.

Peter Ling, from Taylor Road, Wallington, bludgeoned the horticulture teacher Lynda Casey to death with a rock on August 8 last year in Banstead Woods.

The 50-year-old had lured his mistress into the woods and “snapped” after Mrs Casey intimated she was seeing another man.

But it was not until he appeared as a witness that he claimed Mrs Casey, 54, said he was “not big enough to satisfy her” - a reference to his manhood.

John Coffey QC, prosecuting argued that Ling had fabricated this comment after being interviewed by police in the hope of securing a lesser verdict.

Sentencing Ling to life with a minimum of 18 years Judge Giles Forrester told Ling: "You were jealous, jealous beyond measure."

Ling was arrested in Somerset on August 12 and Mrs Casey's partly decomposed body was found the following day.

Under interview, shortly after his arrest, Mr Ling told detectives: “If you had asked me three weeks ago if I was a murderer, I would have laughed. I can't excuse myself.”

Ling's counsel Ingnatius Hughes, told the jury his client is a “normal little man, from a normal little suburb with a normal little wife”.

Judge Forrester told the jury, of seven men and five women: “To find the defendant guilty of murder you must prove that he intended to kill or cause serious harm to her.”

In a victim impact statement read out in court today, one of Lynda Casey's three daughters, Charlotte Evans, paid tribute to her mother.

"Our mum was the rock and foundation of our family. She reared us on her own and we became more like sisters and best friends. Mum was an integral part of our lives.

"She was young and had so much to live for. We had so many plans together and being denied the chance to say goodbye is hard to bear.

"The void that mum's untimely and tragic death leaves behind is immense, too deep and too painful to put into mere words.

"Mum was our mentor. Her enthusiasm, her innocent down to earth view of life and her encouragement has been taken from us. Our lives will never be the same. There is not a day or minute we don't all think of her." She said the death had caused a "ripple effect of tragedy", with her stepfather suffering a heart attack and her grandmother giving up the will to live, becoming ill and dying.

Detective Chief Inspector Chris Raymer, of Surrey Police’s Major Crime Investigation Team, said: “Lynda Casey was a mother and grandmother and was much loved by her family and friends. "She no longer wanted any kind of relationship with Peter Ling and, knowing this, he lured her to a secluded location and murdered her using brute force. There can be no justification for the savagery of the attack she suffered.

“He then went to great lengths to try and cover up his crime - hiding her body and dumping her car in nearby woods. It was days before Lynda’s family would discover what had happened to her.

“By pleading not guilty to her murder he has put her family through the additional ordeal of a trial. Our thoughts are with them and all of those whose lives have been affected by Lynda’s death.

“I would like to thank the officers in my team who worked meticulously to prepare this case and the police search units and forensic officers whose professionalism under extremely difficult conditions cannot be underestimated.”

Click here for our full coverage of the Lynda Casey murder trial