A musician convicted of killing special needs teacher Jane Longhurst will be sentenced today.

Graham Coutts, who was obsessed with violent porn sites, was found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey yesterday following a retrial.

The 39-year-old was first convicted in 2004 and jailed for life but appeal judges ordered a retrial.

Coutts had alleged that Miss Longhurst had died during a sex game.

But the jury again rejected his claims and backed the prosecution case that he murdered Miss Longhurst, 31, for sexual gratification and as part of his fascination with dead bodies.

Miss Longhurst's mother, Liz, 76, had led a successful campaign to outlaw the viewing of violent and extreme pornography on the internet after her daughter's death.

Outside court yesterday, she said: "I am very glad that this second trial has now produced a successful conclusion but feel the very long delays between each stage leading to the retrial have taken a considerable toll on the whole family.

"I trust that we will now be able to resume our lives, safe in the knowledge that Jane's reputation is unsullied and we can remember her as the lovely person she was - gifted, caring and bringing happiness to all."

Her daughter, Sue Barnett, said the three-week second trial had been a waste of taxpayers' money.

"We knew he was guilty," she said.

Detective Inspector Chris Standard said: "Graham Coutts is a ruthless killer who is very dangerous to women.

"This re-conviction should signal the end of Graham Coutts's mission to escape justice and also put an end to the misery and distress he has continued to heap upon Jane's family and loved ones."

Coutts, of Hove, had denied murdering Miss Longhurst, of Brighton, in March 2003.

He strangled her with a pair of tights after forcing her into sex.

He then hid her body in a storage depot before taking it to secluded woodland and setting fire to it, the court heard.

Coutts was found guilty by an 11 to one majority. The jury had been deliberating for 13 hours.

There were cheers from the public gallery where her family had been watching.

Miss Longhurst's partner Malcolm Sentance shouted "rubbish" when the defence suggested that there was a degree of consent on her part.

Jurors were told that Coutts killed her to satisfy a "long-standing and perverted sexual interest" in the strangling to death of women.

Law Lords had ruled his conviction was unsafe because jurors were not offered the alternative count of manslaughter.

Philip Katz QC, prosecuting, told the court he had been looking at "horrific" images on pornography websites the day before.

Afterwards he repeatedly visited the body, which he kept in a storage unit and regarded as his "trophy", for a "sexual thrill".

A former partner told the court that Coutts had confessed: "I get the most awful feeling that I'm going to strangle and kill a woman."

Later he told a psychiatrist that since the age of 15 he had been having thoughts about murdering women and feared they might lead him to commit crime.

"His sexual turn-on was in serious violence to women, killing women by strangulation and sex with dead women," Mr Katz said.

The jury heard that Coutts carried out web searches on terms such as "strangled women", "dead women", "asphyxia", "rape", "murder", "necro" and "snuff".

On the day before he killed Miss Longhurst he had been looking at images on websites such as "violentpleasures.com" and "rapeaction.com".

Jurors were not shown photographs of ex-girlfriend Nicola Stainforth and other women over which he had drawn nooses around their necks.

They were also not told that in 1997 Customs officers intercepted a package addressed to Coutts containing videos called Psycho Sisters and Murder Times Two.

The tapes contained simulated violence against women who were "restrained and hanging from things". At the time Coutts was given a warning about future conduct.

He faces a life sentence. He had originally been given a minimum term of 30 years which was reduced to 26 on appeal.