A Portuguese factory worker who slit his pregnant girlfriend's throat was today found guilty of her murder.

Hugo Quintas, 24, slashed Hayley Richards from ear to ear with a craft knife at her flat in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, in June 2005, before fleeing the country.

He denied murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of provocation - claiming that the 23-year-old waitress had taunted him after she confessed to sleeping with another man.

But the jury of seven women and five men rejected his version of events and today convicted him of murder at Bristol Crown Court and sentenced him to 18 years in jail.

His friend, Sergio da Cunha, 30, who was accused of washing Quintas's bloody clothes and helping him to catch a flight to Portugal, was found not guilty of perverting the course of justice. The jury took just over two-and-a-half hours to reach unanimous verdicts on the two charges. As the verdict was read out, members of Miss Richards's family cheered and shouted "yes". Many of them were also in tears. Quintas showed little reaction as the foreman delivered the guilty verdict.

  • Full story and reaction in this week's Wiltshire Times