A Qatari court has upheld the death sentence given to a man convicted of murdering West Malling teacher Lauren Patterson.

The 24-year-old, whose family home is in Leybourne Chase, was killed following a night out in Doha in October 2013. She had been teaching at a primary school there.

Her badly burned body was found in a remote part of the desert, and a knife found lodged in her rib cage.

The Gulf State’s appeal court has now sustained the sentence handed out to her killer Badr Hashim Khamis Abdullah Al Jabr.

His accomplice, Mohamed Abdallah Hassan Abdul Aziz, was sentenced to three years in prison for helping him to dispose of Lauren’s body by burning it, as well as damaging and getting rid of other evidence.

Despite calls from prosecutors that his sentence should be lengthened, his was also upheld.

The death sentence has not been carried out in Qatar for 12 years despite courts giving out such punishments.