Children’s pain after learning mum Patricia Lashley was killed by Trevor Dunkley

“We didn’t have anyone to support us really in our lives. We struggled growing up,” added Mehmet.

They were unaware that their mother had been beaten to death by her partner before hiding her body in the cellar of their home for about a year before disposing of her remains in household waste bins.

The court heard Dunkley had maintained his account that Lashley had disappeared for decades, despite being spoken to by police multiple times.

He said she had left her youngest child, who was not Dunkley’s son, alone in their flat. Dunkley took the nine-month-old to social services and he was later adopted.

Judge Chambers said the “most significant aggravating factor” in the case was that Dunkley had killed the mother of a baby, who she had still been breastfeeding.

Mehmet said Dunkley killed his mother “in such a horrible way and then lied to us for 27 years”, and that learning about her death had made him feel guilty about the resentment he had felt in the past.

“I feel bad in a way now that I felt that way towards mum,” he said.