THE mother of a woman who was killed and dismembered by her ex-boyfriend has reacted with anger after he was jailed for a minimum of 26 years.

Steven Jackson was found guilty last month of murdering Kimberley MacKenzie at his flat in Montrose, Angus, and was yesterday given a mandatory life term for the killing.

His co-accused Michelle Higgins had also been charged with murder but that was found not proven. She was jailed for eight years for helping dispose of Ms MacKenzie’s body.

But outside court the dead woman’s mother, Helen MacKenzie, said the sentences imposed by Lady Rae were not harsh enough.

She said: “The sentences are ridiculous. She’s literally got away with murder.”

A jury had previously found Jackson, 40, guilty of battering former partner Ms MacKenzie, 37, with a hammer and stabbing her with two knives at a flat in Montrose on October 27, 2015. Ms MacKenzie, sustained at least 11 blows to the head and was stabbed more than 40 times in the attack. The following day Jackson chopped up her body in a bath and wrapped the parts in plastic bags.

He and Higgins then carried some of the remains through the streets before hiding them in bins.

Jackson later boasted to police he had taken other body parts to a slurry pit and fed them to the pigs.

The murder charge against Higgins, 29, a friend of the victim, was found not proven, but she was convicted of helping to dispose of the remains.

The trial was told Jackson targeted Ms MacKenzie in a frenzied attack with two knives, a hammer and a large paint scraper.

As she sat in an armchair drinking a cup of tea and chatting to Higgins, Jackson walked up to Ms MacKenzie and hit her on the right side of the head with a hammer.

The force of the blow knocked her to the ground and, as she lay helpless, Jackson stabbed her more than 40 times before bludgeoning her again on the head with the hammer.

Ms MacKenzie’s body was cut into 12 pieces and her upper torso, lower torso, a leg and feet were dumped in four bins.

The rest of her body, including the head and thighs, was packed into a rucksack and suitcase.

The court also heard Ms Mackenzie had sex with her best friend’s teenage son Danny Verrall, who was 19 at the time, on the night before she was killed.

Mr Verrall, now 20, was the son of Penelope Verrall, 40 and he told the High Court in Glasgow his mother found out what had happened from his friend and she became “very, very angry”.

Passing sentence at the High Court in Livingston, Judge Lady Rae told Jackson and Higgins: “The behaviour of both of you was despicable and callous. The killing appears to have been a wholly motiveless and brutal murder of a defenceless woman. What you both did to the body of the deceased shows a level of depravity thankfully not often seen in these courts.”

She said Jackson, unlike his co-accused ,had shown no remorse.

She told him: “You will not be eligible for parole and release until the whole of the punishment part has expired. Thereafter, it will be for the parole board to decide if you still present a risk to the public.”