A VICIOUS murderer who fled to the continent after stabbing his lover to death the day after being released from prison has been jailed for life — and told he must spend at least 22 years behind bars.

A jury of seven men and five women took just five and a half hours to unanimously find 36-year-old Joseph Davies guilty of the brutal killing of his long-term partner Kelly Davies.

Davies repeatedly stabbed the 31-year-old mother of his three children through the neck as she sat on the sofa at her flat in Queen Street, Farnworth, on June 2 last year.

Their young daughter was in the flat at the time — and remained alone with the body of her dead mother for two days before they were discovered by a family friend.

In a desperate bid to escape after the attack Davies, who was not married to Kelly although they coincidentally had the same surname, had taken a taxi to Manchester Airport to get a flight out of the country.

When he found no available flights were departing until the morning he paid a second taxi driver more than £500 to take him to London.

There, he bought a business class ticket on the morning Eurostar service to Lille, France.

But Davies, of no fixed address, was caught the following week when he was drunk and was hit by a train in The Hague, Holland.

He had to have his lower right leg amputated and was arrested for Ms Davies’ murder as he lay in his hospital bed.

Throughout his trial Davies showed no emotion, claiming he had gone travelling on the spur of the moment, and without any luggage, after realising his 15 year relationship with Ms Davies was over.

He told the court she was alive when he left her and denied prosecution claims that he flew into a jealous rage after believing she had been seeing other men whilst he was in prison serving a two year sentence for wounding a neighbour.

But the jury saw through his lies.

Sentencing him the judge, Sir David Clarke told an unemotional Davies: “The particular use of the knife in this case was savage. You inflicted numerous deep wounds to her neck at a time when she was defenceless on the sofa in her home.”

He was critical of the fact that Davies then left his dead partner in the flat with her young daughter, not knowing when they would be found, while he tried to escape.

“You were determined to get a clear run out of the country no matter what the cost,” he said.

Sir David added that Davies had showed a “jealous and controlling nature” and violence towards Ms Davies throughout their relationship.

Members of Ms Davies’ family sobbed in the public gallery as the verdict was read out and Sir David paid tribute to the dignity they had shown throughout the trial.

Speaking after Davies was led away to begin his life sentence, Ms Davies’ sister, Toni Morton, said she was thankful the trial, the second the family have had to endure, was over at last.

“I am just happy and relieved,” she said.

“We knew he was capable of something like this.

“We now have justice for Kelly and her children.”

Mrs Morton and her sister were not close due to Ms Davies’ problems with drugs, but at the time of her death she was showing signs of freeing herself from her troubled lifestyle.

“You don’t have to like your family but you love them no matter what,” said Mrs Morton.

“I was proud of her for turning herself around in the way she did.”

She added that the family are now hoping to put their 15 month ordeal behind them and get on with their lives.