CONAN met Kirsty when they were neighbours in Winchester city centre, the court heard.

Kirsty’s mother had taken pity on him and his terminally ill wife and cooked meals that Kirsty would take round.

They became friends and Kirsty would spend time there, smoking and drinking. Conan was “sexually inappropriate” towards her, said the prosecutor Mr Jones.

He made her pregnant when she was 17. She hid the identity of the father from her family for a while, but they eventually found out. They moved in together against the wishes of her family.

Ironically, Conan had worked as a security guard at Winchester Crown Court for a short while but was sacked because of the demands of caring for his wife, who had Parkinson’s disease.

The court heard Conan was interested in Viking culture, which might explain the laying out of his son, said Mr Jones.

The killer placed a torch in his son’s hand and wrote him a note, to help him on the journey he was about to undertake.

Previously called Walsh, he changed his surname by deed poll because of his fascination with fictional character Conan the Barbarian, portrayed in a 1981 film starring Arnold Schwarze-negger, pictured.

The film follows the violent transformation of a wild barbarian into a worldly-wise king.

Conan seems to have done the journey in reverse – from a seemingly ordinary man, with no previous convictions, into a savage killer.