Obsessed ex-lover killed woman as she fed horse

An obsessed man was facing life imprisonment this afternoon after he admitted murdering his former girlfriend as she tended her horse.

Stephen Griffiths stalked business analyst Rana Faruqui, a talented horsewoman, for three months after she threw him out of the house they shared near Slough.

Miss Faruqui had told friends she was terrified of him and police had placed her on the "at risk" register.

She had urged friends to ring the police if they ever saw Griffiths near her or the house.

Then in August last year he armed himself with an array of weapons, then stabbed her to death in a field as she fed the horse. Today Griffiths, 41, an unemployed former surveyor from Liverpool, pleaded guilty to murdering the 35-year-old and was being sentenced by Mr Justice Siber at Reading Crown Court.

Heavily-built 6ft 4in Griffiths was watched by his victim's parents Ken and Carol Faruqui and her sister Gemma and brother Simon as he sat in the dock.

Days before the murder neighbours had spotted Griffiths in his Mercedes taking photographs of the house and her car at 6am on a Sunday.

Miss Faruqui was a public school educated high-flyer who seemed totally unsuited to the moody drifter. Her passion was riding and to escape the pressures of her work she would spend hours at Jennings Farm stables in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, where she was to die.

She regularly took part in equestrian meetings and rode at the Windsor Park Equestrian Club of which Prince Philip is president.

She had come a respectable fourth at a recent meeting of the British Horse Trials Associationand a month after her murder she had been due to compete in the Southern Area Club Championships, in which the Duke of Edinburgh was also due to take part.

After being stabbed she had managed to dial 999 on her mobile phone but she was dead by the time the emergency services arrived at the scene 15 minutes later.

Within days police had named Griffiths as the prime suspect and warned the public not to approach him as he was "extremely dangerous".

He was arrested five days after the murder and insisted he was innocent but today changed his plea to guilty.