A German chef married to a Maltese woman was yesterday jailed for life for murdering his first wife and freezing her body for three years before dumping it in a wheelie bin.

Peter Wallner, 34, was found guilty of killing his wife, Melanie, with a griddle pan while she was asleep in August 2006.

He placed his South-Africa-born wife's body in a freezer in the garden shed and claimed she had died of natural causes.

He showed no emotion as he was found guilty, while Mrs Wallner's mother, Jeanne Oosthuizen, wept at the side of the court.

Mr Wallner got married again to Lilia Fenech, of San Ġwann, with whom he drove across Europe to Malta in a rented van. The vehicle was discovered on June 9 last year, days after the body was found. He was arrested when he voluntarily flew back to the UK.

Last year, Ms Fenech, 23, had insisted both she and Mr Wallner had nothing to do with the case and accused the media of having ruined her life. Attempts to contact her yesterday proved futile.

During the trial, Mr Wallner tried to convince the 13-strong jury that it was manslaughter, claiming to have "lost the plot" after his 30-year-old wife hit him with a rolling pin and confronted him about a text message from another woman.

He said he had "acted like a scumbag" when he tried to persuade Mrs Wallner's family and friends that she had died of natural causes, even presenting them with an urn containing ashes from a barbecue.

However, the prosecution said he had killed his wife in cold blood while her eyes were covered with a sleeping mask and had sex on the same mattress the following night. He played the grieving husband and went on to have a number of new girlfriends.

"At the core of this case is the brutality and ruthlessness of this killing. She was murdered in cold blood. This was a senseless killing motivated by the greed of this man to make way for a different woman in his life," prosecutor Bobbie Cheema said.

"Last summer, he still thought he could get away with it. He disposed of Melanie as if she was some waste to be dumped in a dustbin," she said.

Mrs Wallner's father, Petrus Van Der Merwe, said the family had just begun to come to terms with her sudden death when "the dreadful truth" was revealed.

"It was as if she died for a second time and the terrible grief returned - this time coupled with anger and betrayal," he said.

In a statement to Judge Stephen Kramer, Mr Van Der Merwe said: "It haunts me every day to think that while I was staying in Melanie's house after her supposed passing, she was right there in a freezer outside the house. That thought eats away at my soul every day of my life. Why didn't he just divorce her if he didn't want her anymore?"

Court reporting by the Press Association