DOUBLE murderer Michael Clarke has applied for a licence to marry the girlfriend he met over the internet.

The 21-year-old, serving at least 28 years for slaying his parents at their Melksham home, hopes to marry 26-year-old single mum Abbey Hallam. Ms Hallam, of Cavendish Drive, Trowbridge, told the Wiltshire Times this week: "I am not going to say much because there is not a lot I can say. We have applied to get married."

Ms Hallam has always protested her boyfriend's innocence and has vowed to stand by him, despite the length of sentence, and has been visiting him at HMP Horfield in Bristol. "He is holding up as well as can be expected. It is starting to really hit home now. There is not a lot you can say it is just trying to help him going day by day," she said. "He has never had a proper chance to grieve his parents and it is hard."

In February a jury at Bristol Crown Court found Clarke, a martial arts expert, guilty of murdering his parents, 56-year-old Joan, and Milroy, 70, at their home in Berryfield Park, on December 6, 2004. After the sentence Ms Hallam said: "I know Michael didn't do it and I will always stand by the fact that he didn't do it. I have never asked him if he did what he was accused of doing. I know Michael. He wouldn't be capable of it."

The couple met through mutual friends over the internet in the summer of 2003. They chatted online for more than a year but did not meet face to face until Clarke was already behind bars, awaiting trial for murder.

Ms Hallam said she did not attend the trial because she could not sit in court and hear the man she loves made out to be a monster.

This week Clarke's half-sister, Sarah Leyfield, 39, reacted angrily to the news her brother might wed.

She said: "It seems weird to me to marry someone you haven't even been out with.

"They met over the internet and she has been to see him a few times and that is it.

"He seems to be trying to continue to lead a normal life even though he has ruined other lives.

"I don't think he should be allowed to get married. He has taken my children's grandparents away from them. "I went to court to give him support. It wasn't until I saw his reactions and heard the evidence that I began to wonder."

Mrs Leyfield, of Brinkworth Road, Wootton Bassett, said she wants to keep in touch with her younger brother and has written to him in jail but he refuses to maintain any contact with his family.

"The family stood by him for all this time and this is how he repays us. He didn't even tell us he wanted to get married," she said. "We want to see him, we want to see if he is still trying to portray himself as innocent but he won't even send us visitation orders, I think that says something. "He seems to just latch on to the people who believe him."

Police confirmed the marriage application had been made and Clarke is shortly due to be moved from the Bristol prison to one in Derbyshire.