Justice has finally caught up with a dangerous predator who killed his girlfriend 15 years ago and raped two women while on the run.
Angolan-born Miguel Da Silva, 40, (pictured) escaped from a secure psychiatric hospital during a fire alarm in 1994 after confessing he strangled 44 year-old Susan Martin.
He fled to Spain under a false name where he raped one woman, then a second shortly after his release from prison and is still serving that sentence.
Da Silva was convicted by an Old Bailey jury of murdering mother-of-two Susan, who he throttled with a T-shirt at her flat in Aldridge Road Villas, Notting Hill, West London on September 24, 1994.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation he serve a 16-year minimum.
The day after the murder – triggered by Susan’s vow to leave him - Da Silva walked into Paddington Green Police station with blood on his hand.
He confessed he "had a fight with Suzie" and had "beat her up."
Da Silva was arrested and remanded to a secure medical facility at what is now the New Ealing Hospital, West London.
However, when patients were evacuated outside during a fire alarm on March 17, 1995 Da Silva scaled a high wall and escaped.
A case review circulated his details and fingerprints in Portugal and Spain and he was traced to a Spanish prison and extradited to the UK.
Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood of the Metropolitan Police’s Homicide and Serious Crime Command, based at Belgravia, said: “On the 25th of September 1994 Miguel Da Silva needlessly and callously took the life of Susan Martin.
“Following his arrest and charge, he escaped from hospital and had been on the run from the UK for fifteen years until we tracked him down to Spain.
“Sarah, Susan's daughter, bravely articulated in her 'impact statement' to court how the death of her mother has devastated the family.
“I pay tribute to the family's courage and sincerely hope that the conviction today brings some solace and the beginnings of some closure for them.
“No murder investigation is ever over until the person or persons responsible are brought to justice.
“This case demonstrates that, despite the passage of time, Da Silva was hunted down and has been held to account for his actions, thanks to the determination of the police.”
Sarah Martin, daughter of Susan Martin, said: “I have been in limbo for the past sixteen years.
“It still feels like it happened yesterday and I feel the same rawness as I felt then.
“It is fair to say that when my mother was killed, our family fell apart.”
Sarah paid tribute to Susan, saying: “She was the best Mum a child could wish for. She was brilliant in every way.”
She stressed that the murder had a devastating effect on the wider family, her uncles - Susan's brothers - Peter, John, Steven and Tommy Dutton - and also her brother Thomas, who was seventeen at the time of Susan's death.
Sarah also told the court how her sorrow had been intensified by the fact that her mother never got the chance to meet her three grandchildren - Sarah has one daughter, and Thomas has two sons.
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