AN ILLEGAL immigrant who murdered his girlfriend when he discovered she was not pregnant has been jailed for life.

Kirk Reid, aged 28, strangled care assistant Michelle Napier with a telephone wire after finding out she was on the Pill.

Reid, who holds voodoo beliefs, killed the 27-year-old because she had not produced a baby to replace his recently-deceased father.

Telling Reid he would serve a minimum of 13 years, Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith said: "You thought about carrying out the murder for some time and even watched television programmes as you sought ideas of how to do it.

"You felt betrayed a pregnancy on which you had come to lay your hopes was not in fact real."

Prosecutor Sallie Bennett- Jenkins said the victim's partially-clothed body was found lying on the floor of her home in Lynton Road, Bermondsey, on September 1 last year.

She added: "She had been strangled, asphyxiated with a ligature, and the nail of her left forefinger had come off.

"The telephone was off the hook and was lying next to her and there was a razor blade also lying on the floor."

Mum-of-two Ms Napier looked after elderly people at Manley Court Nursing Home, New Cross.

About five months before Ms Napier's death, Reid began telling people she was pregnant.

Ms Bennett-Jenkins said: "He told his cousin Lisa who was surprised as she had seen her friend taking the contraceptive pill."

Jamaican Reid, of Honour Oak Road, Forest Hill, denied murder but was found guilty following a trial at Southwark Crown Court.

He was sentenced on July 27.