A Newton Abbot tanker driver who strangled his wife and fled to the Continent has been jailed for life after being convicted of her murder. At Exeter Crown Court, 40-year-old Mark Munro was found guilty by the jury after it had retired for three-and-a-half-hours during two days. Judge Graham Cottle told Munro he must serve at least 18 years before being considered for parole. Passing sentence the judge said: 'You are an excessively jealous man and you decided that if you could not have her then no one else would. 'You have been convicted by the jury of murder by strangulation of your wife and I pass a sentence of life imprisonment on you. 'I do not doubt that in the earliest stage of your relationship and marriage it was mutually fulfilling. But it was put under increasing strain by reason of the fact that your wife could not conceive and plans to adopt children came to nothing. 'I accept that you had both very much wanted to have children but there came a time when the marriage badly deteriorated and it was at that stage you showed your true colours. 'You are a man by your own admission unable to control your temper and you resorted to violence as you did in a previous relationship. The time came in early 2005 when your wife did not wish to continue the relationship with you and became very frightened of your behaviour towards her. She made her position quite clear but you could not accept that,' said Judge Cottle. He went on to say: 'The starting point for calculating the minimum term is 15 years. There is no credit for a plea of guilty and it is quite clear that you intended to kill her rather than cause serious harm. You strangled her with a ligature over a prolonged period of time, more than sufficient to kill her. From a number of pieces of evidence it is safe to conclude that you had planned to kill your wife. You had threatened to do so in the days before the murder. You had withdrawn a substantial amount of cash, £12,500 from various accounts and interrogation of your laptop computer revealed a search of the internet to discover countries which did not have extradition treaties with this country. I reject what you say about another person making that search. You also visited a website about a trip to Mexico and you booked a flight from Bristol to Nice as well as downloading the Eurostar timetables which led to your escape via Eurostar to Paris. There are serious aggravating features and it is quite apparent on the evidence that you remain a serious risk to any female partner with whom you might form a relationship. The minimum period before any consideration is given to parole is 18 years.' During the trial the jury heard that after Helen Munro told her husband that she was sleeping with another man 'he completely flipped' and strangled her with a dressing gown cord. He then went to London and traveled on Eurostar to Paris from where he telephoned his brother and other people to confess to the killing. Munro said he panicked when he realised that he had killed Helen and went on the run because he did not want to go to jail. He told the jury that he was not planning to be taken alive because he was going to commit suicide. He said he had gone to the top of a hotel in Barcelona with the intention of jumping off the building but didn't have the guts and was afraid of heights. So he went to Santander intending to get a ferry back to Britain and give himself up. The prosecution had claimed that Munro murdered his wife after she told him they could no longer sleep together because she was having an affair with another man. The jury heard he had made a number of threats to Helen in the days leading up to the killing, including handcuffing her and threatening to kill her with a Bowie knife. Prosecutor Geoffrey Mercer QC said Helen sent an e-mail to friends shortly before her death saying she was leaving the family home and that she would be 'safe now.' 'Sadly that was not the case for this woman who was very scared of her husband because of the constant threats he had made against her.' Munro told the jury that he could remember nothing of the killing. He said he and his wife had had consensual sex during which he had handcuffed her because that was what she enjoyed. Then she told him that she was having an affair another man and he 'just flipped his lid'. He said the next thing he remembered was seeing Helen lying on the bed with the dressing gown cord round her neck. He had called her name and shaken her but there was nothing. He had then wandered around like a headless chicken before covering her body, leaving the house and going on the run. Munro had pleaded not guilty to the murder of 35-year-old Helen Munro at their home on the Heather Estate at Heathfield, Newton Abbot, in April last year.