Published: 13/09/2010 17:04 - Updated: 14/09/2010 16:34

High-flying law student Mark Alexander has been found guilty of his father's murder.

 

 

It took jurors at Reading Crown Court 13 hours to reach a majority verdict, of ten to two, that 22-year-old Alexander killed dad Samuel, 70, and attempted to bury his body under four layers of concrete in the garden of his Drayton Parslow home.

 

 

Alexander has always denied involvement in his father's death, and he clasped his hand to his mouth in shock as he stood in the dock and heard the foreman of the jury deliver the verdict.

 

 

Samuel's decomposed remains were only found in February this year after concerned neighbours told police they had not seen the Egyptian-born resident for five months.

 

 

The jury decided Alexander killed his 'controlling' and 'cantankerous' dad so he could live the university life he wanted, which they heard would never have been permitted had he been alive.

 

 

He then wove a web of lies and deceit, trying to convince his father's neighbours and even his own girlfriend that the elderly man was still alive.

 

 

Prosecutors forced him to admit that he had lied about when he last saw his father, about ordering the concrete the victim's body was encased in and about the different accounts he gave to anyone who asked after the 'missing' man.

 

 

Alexander, who attended the prestigious £27,000-per-year Rugby School, even sent Christmas cards to neighbours "from his father" and sent an e-mail to him on the day he was reported missing, urging him to get in touch.

 

 

He had continued with his studies, living an ordinary day-to-day life with partner Senta Nazarbekova, until a missing person search was launched by the police on February 4.

 

 

He was then arrested in his flat in Fleet Street, central London, which he shared with his Russian girlfriend.

 

 

Miss Nazarbekova, a fellow law student, had told the court that after Mark was arrested on suspicion of murder he started an urgent search for his father.

 

 

She said: "He called several missing persons' bureaux and he tried to contact people who could know (where Mr Alexander Snr was).

"Mark was very worried about where his father was gone."

 

 

Sentencing was adjourned until Friday, where he is expected to be handed a mandatory life sentence.