A cheating husband who bludgeoned his wife to death in south Worcestershire before going Christmas shopping with one of his two mistresses was jailed for life after being found guilty of murder.

Jonathan Palmer, who told detectives his wife had been killed by a burglar, was ordered to serve at least 18 years in prison after being unanimously convicted by a jury at Worcester Crown Court.

A three-week trial heard that Palmer, 52, "cornered" his wife Melinda at their home in Wadborough on December 22 last year before repeatedly striking her head with a blunt instrument.

Palmer, who trembled and closed his eyes momentarily as the guilty verdict was delivered, told the jury that he had done nothing to harm his wife.

But forensic evidence found at the property proved that his wife had died at his hands and that he had moved her body in an attempt to make the murder look like an accident and then the work of an intruder.

Passing sentence, Judge Robert Juckes QC described the attack on Mrs Palmer, who was aged 57, as savage and brutal.

The judge told Palmer: "By the 22nd of December last year, such affection as you had for your wife had plainly evaporated.

"You were lying to the two deeply unfortunate women with whom you were conducting an affair - you had convinced both of them that you were a single man."

The judge added that Palmer - who launched the attack after being caught with a "secret phone" on which he contacted his mistresses - had pursued his own pleasure to the exclusion of concern for anybody else.

The trial heard that Palmer, of Crabbe Lane, Wadborough, even texted his mistresses with messages of affection on the day that he murdered Mrs Palmer, and drove to Nottinghamshire to take one of the women shopping.