Manwarings' murderer is jailed for life amid cheers and applause

bank clerk Alison Manwaring and her father Matthew.

As Laing, who was born in Paisley, was unanimously convicted by the

jury of six men and six women at the Old Bailey there was applause and

cheering in the public gallery.

Mark Manwaring, 27 -- sole survivor of the once happy family --

punched the air with his fist, before collapsing in tears. He put his

arm round the man his sister was about to marry, 32-year-old Gordon

Healis. Mr Healis also wept uncontrollably.

Both had sat in the back of court throughout the tense, three-hour

50-minute wait for the verdicts. They had attended each day of Laing's

five-week trial.

Laing showed no emotion as Judge Robert Lymbery said he recommended he

should serve a minimum of 25 years: ''Whether the Home Secretary will

then find it safe to release you must be a matter for him -- he should

be on his guard.

''You are a dangerous man, capable of extreme violence. You are

capable of deceit and dishonesty. You are utterly ruthless and have a

clever and able mind.''

Laing had shown only arrogance, not remorse, throughout. He had turned

on crocodile tears while giving the jury a false story in his defence.

Laing's mother cried in the public gallery as her son was led to cells

but a man near her shouted: ''I hope you rot in hell, you bastard.''

Earlier, Matthew Manwaring's two brothers -- also in the gallery --

clapped as Laing was convicted.

The 25-year-old van driver from Beckton, London, had denied the

murders committed on April 23 last year.

Laing gunned down Mr Manwaring, a 62-year-old widower -- shooting him

through the heart at point blank range with a sawn-off, pump-action

shotgun.

He had duped his way into the Manwaring home in Aldersey Gardens,

Barking, east London, after pretending he wanted to buy a Ford Cabriolet

car the family had advertised.

He then confronted Mr Manwaring's 24-year-old daughter Alison as she

arrived home from an evening with her fiance. He handcuffed her, then

tortured and sexually assaulted her before finally strangling her.

Afterwards, he dismembered their bodies in the bathroom -- cutting

each into seven separate pieces. He put them into 10 plastic sacks and

drove them away to bury later in a ''common and unhallowed hole'' he dug

in his girlfriend's back garden in Abbey Wood, south London.

He later sold the car he had stolen from outside the Manwarings' home

for #7500 at auction.

However, Laing's ''real motive was born out of a desire to murder and

to profit from doing so'', Mr Michael Stuart-Moore, QC, prosecuting, had

told the court.

''He had set his heart on murdering someone.''

After the jury gave their verdicts, Mr Stuart-Moore told them of an

additional ''quite extraordinary feature in this case''.

He said Laing had sent Mr Mark Manwaring a bogus letter in the hope of

putting police and the Manwaring family off his scent. It purported to

come from Miss Manwaring and said she and her father had simply gone

away for a break together.

The letter was signed ''Love Always In God'' -- the capital letters

virtually spelling Laing's name.

''It illustrated the total arrogance of the man who killed Mark's

sister and father and believed he could get away with that crime,'' said

Mr Stuart-Moore.

''Had he been acquitted he would have had the last laugh. He never

intended it to be noticed and it nearly did go unnoticed.''

After the case, Mr Manwaring, an RAF navigator, called for a

referendum on hanging. He said the reason for increasing crime levels

was because ''there was no bloody deterrent''.

''The streets have got to be given back to the police and the decent

people of this country,'' he said.