AS police were scouring the country for a man who had slaughtered a air hostess in a chance meeting in the countryside, he was boarding a boat with his mother in Southampton.

Blonde Hazel Booth died because she spurned the sexual advances of bachelor Peter Weston.

The victim, who was also unmarried, lived in London but in the few days before her death, was visiting her parents. She had gone for a walk with her dog when she met 50-year-old Green who invited her to go out with him.

Prosecutor Patrick Russell QC told Manchester Crown Court at his trial in 1979 that she had refused. "He put his arm around her and sexually assaulted her. She struggled. He strangled her and struck her many times over the head with a stone."

Police investigations quickly led them to Green who lived two miles away, but unknown to them, he had boarded a liner at Southampton to go on a cruise with his mother to the Canaries.

He was arrseted on his return and though he readily confessed, inexplicably denied murdering her at his trial, blaming another man for her death.

Jurors however convicted him and he was jailed for life.