THE grim discovery of a woman's battered remains in a wood near Tonbridge a year ago has led to three men being jailed for life.

Graphic designer Gordon Hoppie, 41, of Hadlow Road, Tonbridge, unemployed Michael Stapley, 21, of Turner Road, Tonbridge, and self-employed company director David Cullinane, 34, of Rectory Close, Colchester, were convicted of conspiracy to murder.

The verdicts came at the end of a seven-week trial at Croydon Crown Court. All three men had denied the charge.

The victim was Cullinane's Moroccan-born wife, Soumia, 27, who was eight months pregnant and whom he suspected was having another man's child.

In March last year he left her in the hands of Hoppie and Stapley at Marden railway station. On March 16 her body, "considerably disfigured" with serious head and neck injuries, was found in undergrowth at Dene Park, Shipbourne, near Tonbridge.

Sentencing the men, Judge Neil Denison QC, said he would recommend Cullinane should serve at least 16 years in prison.

He told him: "You organised the murder of your pregnant wife and then led her in effect to her place of execution. It is difficult to imagine a more cold-blooded and callous and evil crime."

Cullinane was also sentenced to five years, to run concurrently, for obstructing a coroner in the execution of his duty, intending to prevent him from holding an inquest. He had denied the charge.

Hoppie and Stapley, who pleaded guilty to the same offence, were each jailed for three years to run concurrently with their life sentences.

During the trial, the jury heard that Cullinane was first questioned by detectives after his wife's passport had been found in a car park at Tonbridge.

Bruce Houlder QC, prosecuting, said he initially told officers he had "paid to get rid of her". But in a later interview, following his arrest, he claimed he had merely paid for her return to Morocco.

The court heard that Hoppie and Stapley had "almost certainly" killed Mrs Cullinane in the back of a van after she was dropped at Marden train station by her husband.

All her belongings and means of identification were stripped from her and then dumped in a car park in Tonbridge.

Cullinane had never reported his wife missing and it took nearly three weeks for her body to be identified.

Traces of Mrs Cullinane's blood were later discovered in a white van which had been hired from a Tonbridge-based company.

Mr Houlder said it "may never be known" who actually struck the fatal blow, but added that Cullinane must have played a part in his wife's death.

In police interviews, Hoppie claimed he had been hired simply to dispose of the body which Cullinane was supposed to deliver.

But when Mrs Cullinane was brought to their van, Stapley attacked and killed her with a shovel, Hoppie said.

Stapley denied any involvement in the killing but told police he agreed to help Hoppie dump the body. The men were paid £10,000 in total for their role.

Two other men before the court, Alex Woolston, 30, of Manor Fields, Putney, West London, and David Ozorio, 31, of Dawes Road, Fulham, were acquitted of conspiracy to murder. They had denied the charge.