A SCHEMING woman who manipulated her "simple" lover into killing her husband has been jailed for life after being convicted of murder.

Valerie Brown, formerly from Ashford, was told she would have to serve 16 years behind bars before being considered for parole.

A judge said 51-year-old Brown's former lover, Simon Wright, was "extremely malleable" and if their paths had not crossed it was unlikely he would have committed any offences, let alone murder.

Maidstone Crown Court heard that besotted Wright, 34, carried out Brown's wishes because he loved her and believed they would be together for ever.

But after he started serving a life sentence for murder in November 2003, he realised he had been used and decided to reveal the background to him inflicting multiple stab wounds on Michael Wood.

Wright, of Willesborough, near Ashford, was the chief prosecution witness at the trial of Brown, who denied murder and soliciting murder.

After Wright was jailed, Brown moved from Ashford to Chester-le-Street, Durham, remarried and had no further contact with him.

"I suppose in a sense he had achieved his purpose," said David Jeremy, prosecuting.

Wright had cycled several miles from Ashford to a yard at Challock where Mr Wood, who was 48, was working a night shift as a security guard in July 2002.

After the killing, covered in blood, he started cycling home and had to be knocked off his bike by police to stop him.

The judge, Mr Justice Fulford, told Brown, who had also tried to poison her husband: "Although Simon Wright was the person who wielded the knife, your responsibility was very high. You put the idea of killing into his head.

"You cynically organised the offence so that someone other than you had to carry out this savage killing."