Her neighbour had been out of prison less than a year, then she gave him a second chance

A convicted double killer has been handed a whole-life jail term for murdering his neighbour less than a year after being released from prison.

Brian Whitelock was told he would die in prison as a judge handed him the sentence on Friday afternoon. Swansea Crown Court heard how the defendant assaulted his 71-year-old neighbour Wendy Buckney with a kitchen knife, a broken table leg and wooden shelving during a sustained assault in her home.

Ms Buckney was found bloodstained and naked in the living room of her home in Clydach, near Swansea, on August 23 in 2022. She had also been sexually assaulted, the court heard.

Whitelock, 57, had previously been jailed for life in 2001 for murdering Nicholas Morgan by battering him to death with an axe handle. He then set fire to Mr Morgan's body, killing his brother Glen, who was asleep upstairs, in the subsequent blaze.

The Parole Board originally released Whitelock in December 2018. Two years later, Whitelock was returned to prison after being convicted of assaulting a shop worker in a Co-op store in Swansea. The following October he was released for a second time and, less than a year later, he murdered Ms Buckney.

The prosecution told the court there were "significant similarities" between the murders of Mr Morgan and Ms Buckney. Christopher Rees KC, prosecuting, told the court: "In both cases, a weapon was used to kill by repeated blows and both victims sustained severe injuries to the face. In both cases, explosive and disproportionate violence was used without any obvious motive. On both occasions, the defendant was under the influence of diazepam."

Mr Rees added that the murder of Ms Buckney had a "further, sinister, sexual element to it". He told the court: "He inflicted