A former Gravesend minicab driver charged with murdering his partner and burying her under the patio of their Algarve home has reportedly made a series of admissions in a letter from his prison cell.

On January 6, 72-year-old mum-of-four Brenda Davidson was found wrapped in plastic tarpaulin under a concrete slab in the garden of the home she shared with Nigel Jackson, 59.

She had been missing since November last year.

A post-mortem examination found Ms Davidson’s cause of death was severe injuries to the back of the head.

Jackson was charged with murder and concealment of the body and is currently in custody awaiting trial.

At the time it was reported that, when Jackson was approached by the police, he admitted burying her, but said he believed she had committed suicide.

The Mirror reported this week that in a letter from his prison cell, Jackson said he moved a lover into the property a month after Ms Davidson's death, as her body lay in the garden.

But he denied killing her, claiming - rather than committing suicide - she was murdered in a bungled burglary.

He said he came home from a game of golf to find her lying in a pool of blood on the floor of their villa, and believed she was assaulted by robbers who later returned to take their valuables.

He added she had been suffering from cancer and he took a lover because she could no longer fulfil his "needs", but that the pair always planned to be buried in the garden with their beloved pets, which he called their “babies”.

He wrote: "As I thought it was her choice I honoured her choice that night to bury her with our babies."

The pair had been living in Alvor near Portimao for 10 years, after moving there from their home in Cliffe Woods, Medway.