A father-of-three battered a pregnant care worker to death after she refused to have sex with him, a court was told.

Pamela Laidler, 21, was five months pregnant when she met Mark McDaid in her local pub.

Her naked body was found behind a workingmen's club the next day.

Newcastle Crown Court heard how McDaid, a security guard, was frustrated as he had not had sex with his wife for seven months after the birth of their third child.

McDaid admitted her murder and was jailed for life, yesterday.

A murder hunt was launched following the discovery of the care assistant's body, by a 15-year-old boy, behind Houghton-le-Spring Social Club, on Wearside.

Prosecutor John Milford QC told the court how, after a night out at the Britannia pub in Houghton-le-Spring, Wearside, on May 21, last year, the pair walked home before stopping to go their separate ways.

When Miss Laidler refused to have sex with him he launched a vicious attack, kicking and punching her between 30 and 40 times as she lay dying on the ground.

He stripped her and left her face down next to a skip just 400 yards from the home she shared with her parents, Kenneth and Lavinia, and twin brother Christopher.

The cause of death was a combination of severe head and abdominal injuries.

McDaid was arrested after witnesses came forward, and initially denied being involved. He later admitted the killing when police found his shoe prints on the body and Miss Laidler's blood on his shoes.

McDaid told the police that he had "flipped" after she refused to have sex with him

He said he must have been responsible for her injuries, but did not remember inflicting them.

His barrister, David Robson, said McDaid had killed her out of sexual frustration, as he and his wife had not had sex for seven months.

Jailing McDaid, of Waller Terrace, Houghton-le-Spring, Mr Justice Henriques said: "You inflicted upon an innocent young woman a beating which was ferocious, prolonged and apparently without mercy.