London, July 22: A female judge warned yesterday of the dangers of seeking love and sex through online dating after an Indian woman, Usha Patel, 44, was brutally murdered by a stranger, Miles Donnelly, 35, whom she had invited home in expectation of a romantic evening.

Sentencing Donnelly to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 23 years, Judge Rebecca Poulet QC said: "In my assessment, this case is a stark warning to anyone who plans to meet someone following limited Internet contact."

"That meeting must take place in a public place until one person feels they know something of the other," she advised.

A post mortem revealed Usha had been ferociously beaten, strangled and stabbed 13 times in the stomach and the cause of death was recorded as compression of the neck, blunt head injury and alcohol intoxication.

The murder took place on October 7 last year at Usha's home in Cricklewood, north-west London. Her blood-soaked body was discovered by her five-year-old autistic son, who told his maternal grandfather, Gopal Patel, when he called in the morning to take him to school: "Mummy's not well."

The Old Bailey, where the trial took place, was told that the boy, who believes his mother will return, suffers from recurring nightmares.

The judge said: "Usha Patel invited this defendant to come into her flat ... She was clearly anxious to meet a new partner. She paid for this invitation with her life. She was, in my judgment, an extremely vulnerable woman ... both in her background and in the immediate moments leading to her death, when she was heavily intoxicated."

Turning to Donnelly, she said: "Your brutal attack on this woman must have been terrifying for her."

What unfolded at the Old Bailey was a tale of how an Indian woman from a conservative background first met Donnelly, a psychopath, through Oasis, an online dating agency in April last year, and swapped increasingly intimate "I love you" messages with him via WhatsApp before setting up their first face to face encounter.

"It is clear he wanted to meet up for sex and she was accepting of that," according to Simon Denison QC, the prosecuting counsel. He later told Usha his mother had died, that he wanted more than just sex and was looking for a life partner, promising: "I will treat you like a princess.". The night before their first meeting, he said: "If I come to you tonight... and you nurse me back to health... I will swear my life over to you... If you do that babe I will marry you tomorrow." He took with him two bottles of rose wine while she bought bottles of Magners cider.

"It is clear from all the evidence, from the scene and from her phone and his, that he went to her home that evening by arrangement, to drink and to have sex, and they drank, and they both undressed, and for a reason that she cannot tell us and he won't tell us, he killed her and then left in a hurry," said Denison. "The defendant killed Usha Patel in her home that evening, possibly into the early hours of Thursday, after she had put (her son) to bed."

Donnelly would have known he was a "significant and serious danger to women" when he was "driven by compulsions to drink, take cocaine and have sex". "As she was dying, or even just after she had died, he stabbed her a number of times in the stomach," the lawyer went on.

Donnelly then fled "in a hurry", leaving his underpants, socks, T-shirt, hoodie and keys behind - all items which linked him to the crime.

Usha's battered body was discovered on the sofa amid drink bottles and glasses.

She had been dead for some hours.

Denison said: "She was lying on her back under a duvet cover that covered her from her neck down. There was a trickle of blood running from her nostril down her cheek. He tried to wake her but there was no response and she was cold. She had no pulse." For 30 hours, Donnelly hid in the home of a neighbour, Rosie Ferrigno, 43, in nearby Maida Vale. He hit her, too, on the back of the head with a stool after she spurned his sexual advances and was finally arrested on 11 October after calling police himself.

The man Usha had invited home had a string of convictions for threatening and abusive behaviour, possession of a knife, criminal damage, robbery, racially aggravated assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm over an attack on a prison officer, battery, and other crimes.

"He is a lying and manipulative man who was able to quickly gain Usha Patel's trust and get her to agree to invite him to her home," commented Denison.

Donnelly, of Paddington, admitted murder and causing actual bodily harm. He claimed he had killed Usha in a drunken rage following a brief argument.

His barrister, David Hislop QC, said: "It was during a binge brought on by the death of his mother."

DI James Stevenson, from the Metropolitan Police, said: "Donnelly declined to answer any questions put to him during his police interviews and has never offered any information as to why he assaulted and killed Usha Patel that night. Usha's family are completely devastated."