A Lithuanian man was today starting a life sentence for the murder of his 63-year-old widowed Shropshire landlady in a brutal attack at her home.

Gintautas Psenaska, 45, was lodging with Oswestry chimney sweep Margaret Wycherley at her home in Castle Street when he killed her after a three-day drinking binge on May 31 last year, Stafford Crown Court heard yesterday.

Psenaska, a father-of-two working as a kitchen port- er at the Wynnstay Hotel in Oswestry when he carried out the attack, admitted murder.

Passing sentence, Judge Simon Tonking told Psenaska the minimum sentence he would serve before being eligible for parole would be 16-and-a-half years, minus the 332 days he has already spent in custody.

The court was told Psenaska snapped when Mrs Wycherley suggested he could live rent-free if they started a sexual relationship.

During the attack Psenaska punched, kicked, stamped on and jumped up and down on Mrs Wycherley. He also strangled her with her own scarf. She died from the effects of blunt trauma and strangulation.

The judge told Psenaska: “Quite what caused you to attack Mrs Wycherley with such ferocity that you killed her is not entirely clear. She made advances towards you which you found repulsive. In your drunken state you responded with violence.”

The judge noted Mrs Wycherley was just five feet two inches and weighed a little over eight stones while Psenaska was a “powerfully built man”.

He said Mrs Wycherley must have suffered “severe pain and some mental anguish before she died”.

He said he was satisfied Psenaska had not meant to kill his landlady and the violence was “an immediate and drunken reaction to her advances”.

The court heard Psenaska “broke off” his assault and telephoned his estranged wife several times.

The following day he went to Oswestry Police Station to turn himself in but the officers could not understand him and asked him to come back with a translator.

He later made an unsuccessful attempt to escape back to Lithuania and was arrested in Shrewsbury.

After the case ended Acting Detective Inspector Mick Homden said a “very dangerous individual” was now behind bars. He said: “Our thoughts are with her family and friends and hopefully the conclusion of the court case will help them move on.”