TWO sisters wept in court yesterday as they were jailed for life for

the murder of bank clerk Alison Shaughnessy.

Michelle Taylor, 21, who had an affair with Mrs Shaughnessy's husband,

was convicted of murder with her 19-year-old sister, Lisa. The verdicts

led to a wave of emotion at the Old Bailey.

Mrs Shaughnessy's mother, friends of the sisters, and even a woman

juror broke down in tears.

The Taylors' parents, Derek and Ann, put their arms round each other

and gasped when the verdicts were given.

Mr Justice Blofeld told the sisters: ''After a lengthy trial and an

exhaustive and careful consideration of the evidence, you have been

found guilty of this terrible crime -- of killing Alison Shaughnessy,

the wife of John Shaughnessy, whose life was all before her and whose

life is now no more.''

Outside the court Mr Shaughnessy, 30, embraced members of Mrs

Shaughnessy's family. ''It's good to see it's all over and justice has

been done at the end of the day,'' he said.

But his wife's mother, Mrs Breda Blackmore, said: ''There will be no

justice for Mrs Shaughnessy's death. I want the world to know that those

two girls did kill Alison. That's all I want.''

Her husband, Bob, looking shaken, added: ''Now we know who actually

killed Alison. That's all we wanted to know.''

Asked about their feelings towards Mr Shaughnessy, Mrs Blackmore, 48,

added: ''We are still a family. We will be talking to John, we will all

get together as a family.''

Detective Superintendent Chris Burke, who was in charge of the

investigation, said he was delighted with the verdict.

The sisters had ''coldly, calculatedly and wickedly manipulated their

way into a young bride's home and brutally stabbed her to death 54

times.''

He said of Mr Shaughnessy: ''What he has done morally is not for me to

make a statement about, you have all heard about his part in it.''

The sisters' solicitor Michael Holmes said: ''There will be an appeal.

I have seen them in the cells, and they are in tears and very upset as

you would expect them to be. They cannot believe the verdict.''

Mrs Shaughnessy 21, was stabbed in a frenzied attack after the sisters

duped their way into her home in Battersea, London.

Michelle bitterly chronicled her hatred for Mrs Shaughnessy and her

passion for her Dublin-born lover in her diaries, claiming she slept

with him on the eve of his marriage, the court heard.

On June 3 last year, nearly a year after the Shaughnessys were married

in Piltdown, County Kilkenny, she embarked on a cold-blooded plan to

kill her rival.

The sisters drove to the Shaughnessy home and killed Mrs Shaughnessy

after she arrived back from work at Barclays Bank in The Strand, London.

Before the body was found they created a false alibi, persuading a

friend they were at the private Churchill Clinic in Lambeth, where both

Michelle and Mr Shaughnessy worked.

Then Michelle calmly returned to the scene where she attacked Mrs

Shaughnessy only hours earlier.

She gave Mr Shaughnessy a lift after their Monday night routine

arranging flowers for the clinic.

The pair often made love on Mondays when the affair was at its height.

But now it had ended. Mr Shaughnessy told Michelle he wanted to spend

more time with his wife and talked of starting a family.

As he walked in to find his wife's body at the top of the stairs,

Michelle feigned horror and ran to a nearby pub to call police.

After the verdicts, Mr and Mrs Taylor left the Old Bailey through a

rear exit with coats over their heads, refusing to answer reporters'

questions.

Friends of the sisters came out of court with tears streaming down

their faces.

Mrs Shaughnessy's sister Susan, 26, said: ''She was happy for all 11

months she was married.''

Her brother Robert, 19, told reporters: ''I'm just relieved it's all

over. We're going to go and have a drink in a pub to celebrate.''

Lisa Taylor will start her life sentence in youth custody. Prisoners

transfer to an adult jail when they are 21.