A chef has been jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years after being found guilty of murdering his wife.

Peter Wallner battered his wife Melanie to death with a griddle pan while she slept at their home in Surrey in August 2006. He then hid her body in a freezer for three years. Her body was later found in a wheelie bin.

The Old Bailey heard that Mr Wallner thought his wife stood in the way of his womanising.

He placed the body in a freezer in the garden shed and dumped it in the wheelie bin when he left the country with new girlfriend Lilia Fenech.

Bin men refused to take the bin because it was too heavy. Eventually the landlord of Mr Wallner's home on Hamilton Avenue, Cobham, saw an ankle when he looked inside the bin.

Mr Wallner, 34, was arrested after he voluntarily returned from Malta last June, following an international media alert.