A HAMPSHIRE man with an anti-social personality disorder through cannabis misuse was today jailed for life for the murder of his partner.

Philip Caswell, 32, strangled and battered Stephanie Hancock, 22, in the bedroom of their home in Pegasus Close, Gosport, last July.

Winchester Crown Court was told today that he could not accept the end of their relationship.

A weeping Caswell today pleaded guilty to murder and to assault causing grievous bodily harm on a boy who cannot be named for legal reasons.

He denied the attempted murder of the boy and the attempted murder of a girl.

Anthony Donne QC, prosecuting, said Caswell was unable to accept that Stephanie Hancock was ending their eight-year relationship.

Caswell attacked her as she slept, punching her, smashing her head against the wall and strangling her with a cord.

He then went to the kitchen, got a knife and stabbed her four times in the back.

The post-mortem revealed the cause of death was strangulation.

Nick Atkinson, mitigating, said Caswell had smoked cannabis almost every day since he was 17. He said the chronic drugs misuse had worsened an antisocial personality disorder. But Mr Atkinson added that the disorder was not bad enough to mean Caswell suffered from diminished responsibility.

Mr Atkinson said Caswell suffered from low self-esteem and poor coping skills. "He's an inadequate, unhappy young man who has never been assisted in his life by abuse of drugs. It continued to maintain him in an unreal cloud of existence."

Sentencing, the judge, Mr Justice Poole said: "She died of strangulation. Your reaction was that you felt relief and felt you had done her a favour. You had not done her a favour.

"You suffered abnormality of mind associated with cannabis abuse but it was not abnormal enough to impair your responsibility for carrying out the killing."

The judge ordered a not-guilty plea to be entered on the attempted murder charge on the boy. He said the similar charge against the girl should remain on file.