STEPHEN McHugh has been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 18 years for the murder of Rebecca Steer in Oswestry.

The 28-year-old, of Park Hall, near Oswestry, was handed the sentence this lunchtime at Stafford Crown Court.

It comes after he was found guilty of Ms Steer's murder in Oswestry last October by a majority jury yesterday (Thursday, May 4).

Mr Justice Andrew Baker sentenced McHugh to life with a minimum term of 18 years in prison for the murder of Miss Steer, plus a further four and a half years in prison to be served concurrently for the GBH of Kyle Roberts.

McHugh mowed down the 22-year-old, from Llanymynech, in Oswestry last October.

The court was told how he had been drinking alcohol and had taken cocaine and cannabis during the day.

READ MORE: Family's tribute to 'beautiful and amazing' Rebecca Steer after murder verdict

He told the court he had only wanted to "scare" the group of people outside the Grill Out takeaway that night.

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Andrew Baker said McHugh, originally from Fazakerley in Liverpool, had reacted to verbal abuse directed at his erratic driving by treating pedestrians “like they were human skittles”.

Describing the murder of Ms Steer, 22 and from Llanymynech, as an outrage, the judge told McHugh: “It could so easily have been much worse for the general group on the pavement.

“For Becky Steer, as everyone in court knows, it could not have been worse.”

The judge, who ordered the destruction of Stephen McHugh’s Volvo, heard family victim impact statements telling how Rebecca Steer wanted to become a police detective and was in the final year of a criminal justice course at Liverpool John Moores University.

In one of the statements, Ms Steer’s mother described Rebecca as the “most loving, talented and kind-hearted person who you could have wished to know”.

The judge said of Ms Steer: “In her mother’s words she was ‘flying’ through her course and had great ambitions and a future full of potential.”

The judge told McHugh, who made a thumbs-up gesture towards the jury as he was led away: “The fact that it was illegal for you to be driving at all even if stone-cold sober (because he had no licence) makes it even more of an outrage.

“You arrived behind the wheel driving too fast and too close to the pavement – unfit to be driving anywhere.

“You drove the Volvo into the crowd like they were human skittles.”

More to follow.