A BARRHEAD man has been jailed for life for the brutal murder of a woman in her own home - after standing trial for the crime three times. Muazim Ali Shah was ordered to serve 18 years in prison before he becomes eligible to seek release on parole following the killing of Lynne Farquhar.

A judge warned Shah that it did not necessarily mean he would be released at the end of that period.

Shah, now 35, who had a heroin habit at the time of the murder, attacked his 47-year-old victim at her home in Auchenback's Rockmount Avenue on September 26, 2010 in a violent, sustained assault.

Lord Kinclaven told him at the High Court in Edinburgh: "This was a brutal murder of a woman in her own house."

The judge said: "You robbed Lynne Farquhar of her life as well as her possessions."

"You have been convicted by the verdict of the jury of the most serious of crimes, the crime of murder."

Lord Kinclaven noted in passing sentence on the murderer that he had a short list of previous convictions, but no history of violence.

The judge said Shah's crime involved the �inflicting of blunt force injuries to the head and body of his victim and robbing her of items at her home.

Shah was originally convicted of the murder, which he had denied committing, in 2011. But the conviction was quashed on appeal after judges ruled that a jury had been misdirected.

He stood trial again at the High Court in Glasgow but proceedings were halted when it was discovered that a woman on the jury had been speaking to other jury members about what she had found on the internet.

The woman, who was thought to be the first person in Scotland to be caught defying a ban on jurors using the internet to seek details of a case, was admonished for contempt of court after a judge heard she suffered a severe anxiety disorder.

Shah, formerly of Paisley, was found guilty of the murder at a fresh trial.

He repeatedly stamped on the head and body of his victim, punched and kicked her, seized her by the neck and compressed her neck and repeatedly struck her with a weapon to inflict blunt force injuries. The victim was robbed of a mobile phone, keys, cash and drugs.

Ms Farquhar was left with a fractured skull, broken ribs, a fractured larynx and multiple bruising during the vicious fatal attack.

The murderer left a bloody footprint on her stomach. The print matched a make of trainer, the Adidas Lin jogger, that Shah was captured on CCTV wearing. Detectives discovered his partner had bought him a pair of the trainers a few months before the attack.

Lord Kinclaven backdated Shah's prison sentence to November 2010 when he was first taken into custody.