A father who killed his ex-girlfriend by plunging a knife into her neck in a “ferocious” attack was today beginning a life sentence after being found guilty of murder.

Carl Truffas did not even flinch when the jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court convicted him of killing 23-year-old Natalie James at her flat in Walsall on August 7 last year.

It took the jury 31 minutes to reach the unanimous verdict yesterday. Truffas, aged 33, of Kendall Court in Walsall Wood, had denied murder, claiming he acted in self-defence and stabbed the mother of two accidentally as they tussled with the knife she had picked up.

But Miss James’s friend Jennifer Staples told the trial she saw Truffas bound into the kitchen “manic and wide-eyed”, grab the young mother by her throat and pick up the knife.

Miss James, who had given birth to their son six weeks before, bled to death after the knife severed an artery. Police were at the flat in Kings Road, Rushall, just moments before the killing, responding to a burglary carried out by Truffas.

Judge John Warner, who told Truffas he would serve at least 16 years behind bars minus the 227 days spent in custody, said: “You later went back and skulked around and waited until the police had gone. You burst into the kitchen and launched an attack on her.

“As a result of your actions two young children, one very young, have lost their mother.” Judge Warner called it a “ferocious” attack.

Miss James’s mother Gillian, 44, of Bloxwich, said her daughter had been taken away in “the most devastating of circumstances”. She added: “We are relieved the correct verdict has been reached.”

Truffas was also given a two-year concurrent prison sentence for the burglary.