The mother of a murdered West Malling teacher has been told the retrial of the man convicted of killing her daughter in Qatar won't go ahead until May.

Alison Patterson travelled to Doha for the hearing of Badr Hashim Khamis Abdallah al-Jabr, who was sentenced to death for stabbing Lauren Patterson and burning her body.

However, despite the case being scheduled for today the judge deferred it until Sunday, May 1, after hearing from the defendant that his counsel wasn't there.

Miss Patterson, whose family home is in Leybourne Chase, was 24 when she went missing following a night out in 2013.

Her remains were found burned in a remote part of the desert with a knife still lodged in her rib cage.

Mrs Patterson tirelessly campaigned for justice and in March 2014 al-Jabr was found guilty of her murder, despite maintaining Lauren had died accidentally.

Another man, Mohamed Abdallah Hassan Abdul Aziz, was sentenced to three years in prison for helping the killer to dispose of Lauren’s body, as well as damaging and getting rid of other evidence.

In February, Qatar’s court of appeal agreed to grant al-Jabr a retrial after throwing out his conviction.

The deferral is just the latest in a series of setbacks for Mrs Patterson, who had to raise £30,000 to continue her campaign after spending thousands of pounds travelling to the Gulf state.

In a post on Facebook this morning she said she was "feeling upset, angry and frustrated yet again".