JUDGE Patrick Eccles's remarks when sentencing Will Blencowe to life imprisonment for the murder of Connor Tremble.

Will Blencowe, you have been convicted by the jury of the offence of murder.

On February 13, 2014, you stabbed Connor Tremble, a vulnerable young man only 17 years of age, and murdered him.

It is difficult now to comprehend the terror and pain Connor Tremble must have experienced as he was confronted without warning in his own home, by a man he did not at the time recognise, who was armed with a knife, and who then in a frenzy of anger, jealousy and hate, stabbed him 15 times to his body with a further 11 thrusts with the knife that missed him as he tried to protect himself.

For two days the doctors battled to save Connor Tremble’s life but it could not be saved.

His parents then faced the saddest choice that anyone could ever face, namely to agree that the life-support machine for their beloved son be turned off so that he could die in peace.

There is only one sentence for the offence of murder and it is life imprisonment.

In mitigation I accept that there are two relevant statutory features which do have an impact on sentencing.

The first is your age, because you were only 20 years old at the time of the offence. The second is the state of your mental equilibrium when you devised and executed the plan to Connor Tremble.

It is clear that you have suffered for many years from a number of distressing symptoms caused by an emotionally unstable personality disorder and an obsessive compulsive disorder.

There was in my judgment clear evidence that your personality disorder made it that much more difficult for you to separate emotionally from Aimee Harrison and to cope with the fact that your relationship with her would never be resumed.

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