Family members of a woman who was stabbed to death wept with relief as her murderer was jailed for life today.

Trevor Gibbon, of Windsor Crescent, Harrow, stabbed his next door neighbour Alison Morrison 33 times in her back and chest as she walked to Northolt Park station on her way to work on the morning of December 18 last year.

Following a nine-day trial at the Old Bailey, a jury unanimously found 48-year-old Gibbon guilty of her murder on Thursday, June 25.

At the same court today, Judge Timothy Pontius set the minimum term of his life sentence as 28 years.

During the trial, the court heard that a dispute between the two families dated back to 2011 when Mrs Morrison, her husband Cedric and their teenage son Kori moved next door to Gibbon and his partner.

A satellite television engineer from Birmingham, Gibbon almost immediately began complaining about the noise from the teenager’s skateboard – leading to a lengthy battle that came to a head in October last year when he followed the family on their way to work.

He was charged with harassing the family between August 1, 2012 and October 31 2014 and admitted the offence at the magistrates’ court the day before the killing.

In his defence, Gibbon sobbed as he told of the “tit for tat” relationship with his neighbours, before going on to say that his memory of the attack was “hazy”.

In mitigation, his lawyer Francis FitzGibbon said Gibbon was horrified and deeply sorry for what he had done.

The lawyer said: “It is so wholly out of character that he and his friends and family are at a loss.

“No one could have guessed someone flashing his lights, banging on his fence, being a bad neighbour, could have done something like this.”

On the morning of December 18, Gibbon had collected two knives from his kitchen, put them in a carrier bag and drove to Alexandra Avenue to intercept Mrs Morrison – a Which? senior manager and community champion – on her way to work.

When he saw her pass, he got out of the car with the carrier bag and approached her from behind, stabbing her 15 times in the back with the larger knife until she fell to the floor.

He then sat astride her, stabbing her repeatedly in the chest with the knife, before making his way back to his Mercedes and driving 100 miles away to Lincolnshire, where he was picked up with blood still on his hands.

As she lay dying in the street, charity worker Mrs Morrison told people trying to help her: "Trevor Gibbon did this to me.”

Gibbon denied murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter, saying he was suffering from an “abnormality of mental functioning”.

During sentencing today, Judge Timothy Pointus said: “This was not a frenzied loss of control on the defendant’s part but a merciless act of vengeance indubitably with the intent to kill Alison Morrison in the forefront of his mind.

“This brutal murder robbed a close-knit family of a devoted and caring wife, mother, sister and aunt.

“A woman, the victim impact statements make movingly clear, with a zest for life and enthusiasm for her responsible and stimulating job.

“As a result her family have been left devastated and the devastating effects on the relationship between her husband and her son may take a very long time to repair.”

Members of Mrs Morrisons family, sat in the court room and in the public gallery, wept with relief as the judge passed his sentence - while Gibbon, dressed in a dark suit and tie, stared at the floor as he was led away.