DCS Geoff Ronayne said the minimum 35-year term imposed on Whant’s life sentence was the longest he has seen in his 30-year career with Gwent Police.

In October 2009 Russell Leon Carter was locked up for a minimum of 30 years for murdering driving agency boss Kingsley Monk and the attempted murder of three of his co-workers, Gethin Heal, Robert Lewis and Nathan Taylor, in a four-hour attack at the Driverline 247 premises in Pontypool on October 20, 2008.

In March 2006, the killers of Pill father-of-three Lemy Bullock were jailed for a total of 60 years.

Mohammed ‘Mo’ Nasser, was told he will serve at least 24 years, Aaron Kent had a minimum term of 20 years and Martyn Bruce was told he would serve 16 years before being considered for parole.

Mr Bullock was stabbed to death with a samurai sword in Harvey’s pub in Pill, Newport, on March 15, 2005.

In 2003, Pontypool man Michael Baldwin was sentenced to life with a minimum of 14 years for the murder of his teenage stepdaughter Jenna Brookfield. On review of his sentence a judge decided he must stay locked up until 2016 at the earliest.

The prosecution claimed that Baldwin strangled Jenna, 15, before burying her in a shallow grave on a Blaenavon mountainside.

The cause of death was never determined.