They walked together from the court, smiling in the knowledge the woman they loved and lost had been granted some measure of justice.

It had been a long wait for the loved ones of Jane Longhurst.

Almost a year since the day she vanished, three weeks since the start of the trial and three long days since the jury had begun their deliberations.

For weeks they had sat, silent and dignified, forcing themselves to listen as Coutts made a last desperate attempt to save his own skin.

They knew he was lying, they knew he could not hurt Jane any more but at times it seemed almost too much to bear.

Yesterday, when the moment of justice finally came, it seemed to bring some relief.

The clock above Graham Coutts' head said 12.10pm as the 12 men and women who had just decided his fate filed back.

As they took their now-familiar seats, several jury members stared pointedly at the man in the dock. One woman glared at him, another sat and sobbed quietly.

Jane's sister Sue looked nervous. As the seconds ticked by and the expectancy became almost unbearable she put a hand to her face and cried.

Malcolm Sentance, the man Jane planned to have children with, sat calmly beside her with a hint of a smile. He had never doubted - he knew what was coming.

Jane's partner, her family and friends, members of the public and of the Press, police officers and court staff all held their breath as the jury forewoman rose to her feet.

Had they reached a verdict? "Yes".

What did they find? Just one word, "Guilty", reverberated through the packed courtroom.

Jane's mother, Liz, who had not shed a tear in court before yesterday, was finally overcome and began to cry - as did Sue. Malcolm broke into a wide smile.

From across the public gallery came shouts of joy and relief.

Coutts did not flinch. He barely blinked, staring straight ahead.

And then the words of Judge Richard Brown, words which moved all who heard them.

He rammed home the sheer unbelievable horror of what Coutts had done. Looking the killer straight in the eye, he told him: "You have shown not one jot of remorse". Coutts, still looking straight ahead, betrayed not a flicker of emotion.

"A minimum of 30 years . . ." - Those were the words Jane's loved ones had been waiting for and when they came it was as if an emotional dam burst to reveal their long pent-up anger.

Exactly how Coutts lured Jane to his home or what was said during their six-minute and 54-second phone call we may never know.

What seems clear is that she walked willingly into the home of a man she thought was a friend.

How was Jane to know that beneath the friendly demeanour lay a man consumed by a need to exert the ultimate control over her? Who night after night would feed that obsession over the internet, slowly transforming himself into a ticking sexual timebomb.

Throughout the trial there were several poignant moments when the court was reminded of the "if onlys".

Coutts's partner had been off work sick that fateful week and would be off ill again the whole of the next.

But on that Friday morning, unbeknown to Jane, she had felt well enough to go in.

Meanwhile, Jane's partner Malcolm had also been off work with stress. He too returned that Friday.

Coutts himself would have been working that day except his colleague Dianne Sayers wanted to stay home to look after her partner, who had injured his thumb.

Just a few minutes after Ms Sayers called Coutts to tell him he was on his own that day, Coutts took the call from Jane.

He could not have known his opportunity would come that Friday, though a psychiatrist who studied the case told police Jane was always going to be Coutts' victim.

Was it her implicit goodness that marked her out as the ideal victim in the eyes of her demented killer?

Did he take additional pleasure from the knowledge he was performing his perversions on a fresh-faced, talented young woman known for her love of children?

How long he nursed these thoughts prior to Jane's death we will never know.

Coutts's appearance in the witness box had shed little light.

He spoke of comforting a "distressed" Jane, wiping a tear from her cheek in a scene straight out of Mills and Boon.

Everyone else who heard from Jane that morning recalled she had been her normal happy self.

His recollection of Jane's last moments were detailed, yet from the moment of her death his memory failed him. What he could remember was how within hours of killing her he was watching television while outside, in the boot of the car, lay the body of his victim.

Why had he kept Jane's body another 35 days? The suspicion remains that the person who choked the life out of Jane Longhurst was an individual so possessed by his own demons he returned to his victim to defile her again and again.

For more than a month, he left Jane hidden in a dark place while her family and partner clung to the forlorn hope she might still be alive.

When the time came for answers, he did nothing to lessen their torment with the lie she had been a willing partner in his fantasies - a love cheat partly responsible for her own death.

He showed no mercy, neither to Jane nor to her memory.

Not content with robbing the bubbly teacher of her future, of her chance to be a wife and mother, he callously set out to rob her of her unblemished good character when she was no longer able to defend herself.