A MAN convicted of murdering his friend by strangling him with a belt has been found hanged in prison.

Alan Taylor, from Darlington, who received a life sentence for the 2006 murder of John Morrison, died in Holme House Prison, Stockton, yesterday.

Taylor, 41, had claimed at his murder trial in March that the horrific death of his girlfriend, Julie Paterson, had affected his mind.

Her death at the hands of psychopath David Harker in 1998 left Taylor a broken man.

Harker, from Darlington, dismembered Ms Paterson and claimed to have eaten part of her body. Police have never found her head.

At his trial in Teesside Crown Court, Taylor denied murdering Mr Morrison, pleading guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

But the jury rejected claims that Taylor was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and reached a unanimous verdict of murder after deliberating for five hours.

Taylor, who lived at a Salvation Army Hostel in Tom Raine Court, Darlington, said he had killed Mr Morrison at his flat in Trafalgar Terrace, Darlington, after a drunken row over an alleged affair with a girlfriend.

He choked Mr Morrison with his hands before taking the belt from his jeans and strangling him with it.

Taylor then covered the body with a quilt, placed a photograph of his late mother on his chest and said a prayer before leaving to call the police and confess.

The court heard that Taylor, an alcoholic, had five times the legal drink-drive level of alcohol in his body at the time of the attack.

The judge handed him a life sentence, with a minimum tariff of 13 years.

A spokeswoman for the Prison Service last night confirmed that Taylor had died in custody at Holme House Prison, but said she was unable to release any other details.

She added: "All we can say is that every death in custody is a tragedy and our sympathies are with his family."

An investigation into the death will be conducted by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.