KILLER Maxine Williams will spend a minimum of 13 years in jail before being considered for release.

The ruling by Mr Justice Nigel Davis at Swansea Crown Court follows a jury’s unanimous verdict that Williams, 22, was guilty of the murder of her mother’s partner, Bernard Evans at his home at Pantyffynnon Road, Ammanford.

Williams refused to leave her cell at Eastwood Park Women’s prison, near Bristol, to attend Wednesday’s hearing and the court proceeded in her absence.

Mr Justice Nigel Davis said he accepted Williams had not intended to kill Mr Evans, despite making two such threats the very night he died, but she had intended to cause him serious harm when she plunged a knife into his arm during a row.

The blow severed an artery and he bled to death.

The judge said he noted that Williams had convictions for acts of violence and that ‘she has a violent streak in her when drunk’.

And while accepting she had not planned the killing she had worked herself up into such a state that she was willing to act violently towards Mr Evans should the circumstances arise.

In the early hours of January 22 an argument broke out in the kitchen and Williams stabbed him twice, once to the arm and once, slightly, to the chest.

As he lay dying she kicked his body and tried to dispose of the knives she had thrown at him during the row, Mr Justice Davis said he also took into account that right until the opening of the trial Williams had ‘wickedly’ maintained that her mother Julie had carried out the killing.

And during the trial she instructed her defence team to argue that her 16-year-old brother Wayne was telling lies.

Williams’ barrister, Paul Thomas QC, said Williams was the product of her difficult upbringing, which resulted in a personality disorder.

At the time of Mr Evans’ death Williams was staying in a mother and baby unit in Pembrey following the birth of her daughter Zoe seven weeks earlier.

Mr Thomas said there were signs that Williams was moving on with her life ‘and perhaps the greatest punishment is that she has lost Zoe’.

In explaining Williams’ absence, he said she had refused to leave her cell or, following the verdict, to speak to her defence team.

In announcing the sentence of life, with a minimum of 13 years in jail, Mr Justice Davis said, “There is no true remorse in this case.

“The very strong impression it forms is that the real sorrow that she feels is for herself and the predicament she now finds herself in.

“A troubling feature is that she has previous convictions for violence. She has a violent streak in her, particularly when she is drunk.”

Mr Justice Davis said he did not accept that claims by Williams that Mr Evans had been violent towards her mother added up to provocation for what she did to him.

“We will never know his side of the story,” he added.