A woman spent the day at a wildlife park in Kent before she was strangled to death by her estranged husband.

Unemployed Martin Cavanagh, 35, murdered mum-of-two Sophie Cavanagh, 31, then wrote “she deserved it” on a children’s whiteboard left next to her body. He's been jailed for 16 years.

Cavanagh killed her while they were together in his flat, hours after they visited Wingham Wildlife Park near Canterbury, then drank in a pub with friends.

The whiteboard found next to her body said: “U no who u r, so 2 u I say Fnk u + I realy do love u. She deserved it.

"And now me my angel and my princess. Can be 2 geva 4eva and we will Have love and happyness like we deserve."

At Cavanagh's sentencing hearing at the Old Bailey, prosecutor Alexandra Healy read a statement from Sophie's mother, Dawn Larkin, which blasted him for the “selfish and evil” murder.

Ms Larkin said: “Since losing my daughter Sophie, my whole life has changed, it’s like there is a big, black hole - I can no longer phone her or see her, which I miss desperately.

“Her sister Lucy has not only lost a sister, she has lost her best friend.

"My whole life has changed, it’s like there is a big, black hole..." Dawn Larkin

“Sophie’s children have lost the love of their mum and it’s so hard and heartbreaking that all we have is photos, her ashes and our memories when in fact we should have her here with us.

“Our lives will never be the same again and nothing will fill the void.”

Ms Larkin also blasted Cavanagh’s decision to plead not guilty to the murder, adding: “I sat through the trial and listened to the horrific details of how she was murdered.

“All of this could have been spared us if he had admitted what he had done, but he chose to keep up the charade until the end.”

Jailing Cavanagh for life, Judge Michael Grieve QC said he “inflicted a life sentence of suffering” on Sophie’s family and children.

He said: “You caused the wholly unnecessary tragic death of 31-year-old Sophie, much loved by her family and friends, who had most of her life before her.”

Cavanagh “deprived” her children of her “love and care forever”, he said.

The judge added: “You could not let go of Sophie emotionally and kept a close eye on other relationships she might be forming, on occasions interfering in order to frustrate them.

“In the week before you killed her you got desperate to have her and as it turned out to ensure that no one else could.”

Jurors in the trial were told Cavanagh, of Bromley, south London, had offered her money for sex days before the murder.

He sent her a text which said: “I want to have you one last final time.”

The pair were married in September 2011 but had lived separately for the previous two years and had a “volatile and fractious relationship”.

Sophie was filing for a divorce at the time of the killing.

After visiting the park they visited a pub with friends who described the pair in “good spirits”.

But Cavanagh killed Sophie that night, before her body was found at his flat with her feet poking from beneath a quilt on his makeshift bed.

Cavanagh then visited his mother's house at 7pm the following day but was confronted by his sister-in-law.

"You got desperate to have her and as it turned out to ensure that no one else could...” Judge Michael Grieve QC

He said, "you know, don’t you?", then when she said yes, he claimed there was an argument but he “didn’t know” what happened.

He told her “his life was over”, then left before police launched a manhunt.

After a police appeal he handed himself in at Bromley police station on Thursday, May 24.

Earlier that morning, family members had seen him in his mother's shed, where he had said: "I'm not running, are the police here?"

He told them: "I want you to take me to the police station, I didn't do it."

Messages from Sophie's phone revealed a conversation in which he accused her of messaging another man, despite her insisting she was not.

One said: “NO MORE Message from me tonight. Just wish u would admit Ur talking to a fella.”