Gordon Park looked utterly bewildered as justice finally caught up with him 28 years after he murdered his wife.

The 61-year-old retired teacher appeared confused and could barely stand as he was taken down to the cells after the jury foreman pronounced the guilty verdict to Manchester Crown Court.

Having listened to eight weeks' of evidence, it took them seven hours to decide that Park was a liar who had carried a dark secret for more than three decades.

Despite his denials they believed the prosecution case that he had battered his 30-year-old unfaithful wife to death with an ice axe in 1976 before dumping her body in Coniston Water where it lay undiscovered until 1997.

Park's third wife Jenny sobbed as Mr Justice McCombe told her husband he would serve at least 15 years of his life sentence because of the brutality of the murder and the "terrible concealment of the body which led to so much suffering being inflicted on so many people".

Only hours earlier, Park, of Norland Avenue, Barrow, had been arranging to talk to the local press.

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