A man who got away with murdering his partner for decades before making a ‘shock’ confession has been jailed for just 10 years.

Mum of seven Patricia Lashley was last seen in September 1998.

Her partner at the time Trevor Dunkley, now 66, was visited by police in July this year as part of the ongoing missing persons inquiry.

But during the interview he told officers ‘I killed her, I’m sorry’, before describing how he hid Patricia’s body in the cellar of his home at the time.

Dunkley pleaded guilty to murder at Wolverhampton Crown Court and was jailed for life on Friday with a minimum term of 10 years and 10 months.

The court heard Patricia’s six oldest children believed their mum had abandoned them.

Her nine-month-old baby, who was still breastfeeding, was taken to social services by Dunkley and grew up with adoptive parents, the court heard.

Judge Michael Chambers KC told Dunkley: ‘He grew up thinking, obviously quite falsely, that he had been abandoned by his mother, as did his siblings.

‘That is in my judgement a grossly aggravating factor.’

The judge said he accepted that Dunkley was genuinely remorseful, but what he had done was ‘a dreadful thing’ and the passage of time was solely due to lies he had maintained for 28 years.

Dunkley remained calm at the previous hearing as his barrister, Balbir Singh, told a judge the charges had been brought based on a police interview.

Asked if the victim’s body had been found, Mr Singh answered: ‘No, because this is 28 years ago and the body was put into the cellar downstairs.

‘It decomposed.

‘When he was moving about nine months to a year later, the skeleton was disposed of into the bins.’

Police have said Ms Lashley, who was known locally as Pat or Jade, lived at an address in Hall Street, Dudley, had links to London, Wales, Newcastle and Scotland, and also used the names Vanessa and Tricia, as well as the surname Bradford.

Several members of her family, including three of her children, were present in court to see Dunkley sentenced.

Prosecutor Robert Price told the court Dunkley was seen to become emotional on the day of his arrest, before telling police he had ‘just snapped’ and repeatedly hit Ms Lashley around the head.

He also told police he had put the body in the cellar, could then hear rats under the kitchen floor, and had disposed of bones over a period of weeks.

Mr Price said Dunkley also claimed he did not love the victim, did not have a sexual relationship with her, and ‘just wanted to help with the baby’.

He said the pair had met while Ms Lashley was pregnant and living in Dudley, and on the day of the murder, he had returned home after a night shift and had attacked her with his fists while she was in bed – saying he ‘flipped’.

After the murder, Dunkley, who was 38 at the time, told detectives he covered Ms Lashley’s body with bedding and took her down to the cellar, disposing of her remains in four stages.

Ms Lashley was reported missing by her sister in June 1999 and in the years following her disappearance, regular appeals were made to try to locate her, including in the Big Issue and on Good Morning Britain.

Speaking after the sentencing, Detective Inspector Michelle Cordell, from the West Midlands Homicide Unit, said no human remains had been found despite extensive excavation of the cellar.

The senior officer said: ‘Patricia was reported missing by her sister in June 1999. That investigation had uncovered that she was last seen in around September time in 1998.

‘The missing person investigation was active from that point onwards.

‘It was most recently investigated by our missing persons unit, and ultimately they have retraced all of the information that was known.

‘Over the course of the decades, they have relooked at that information and they have identified Trevor Dunkley as someone that had been spoken to on several occasions.

‘There were some questions that they thought he could assist the investigation with. That led them to speak to him in July this year, which is where he made his shock confession.’

She said of the killer’s conduct: ‘It’s truly shocking. For anybody to be able to use such violence… to conceal his crime in the cruel way that he has done – it’s despicable.

‘He has prevented Patricia’s loved ones from having a funeral for her.

‘He has left them without answers for decades. It’s just unforgivable.’

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