GULF War Syndrome was described as a 'spurious defence' by the judge who sentenced a former Hereford SAS trooper to life in prison for the murder of his ex-lover.

In a jealous rage, Thomas Shanks killed Vicky Fletcher after seeing her in a pub with her new boyfriend, using an AK47 assault rifle smuggled back after the Middle Eastern conflict.

He had met the nurse at a Pontefract hospital where he worked as an anaesthetist, having gained the qualifications he needed for medical school at Herefordshire College of Technology.

Shanks was found guilty of murder by a 10-2 majority following the eight-week re-trial at Sheffield Crown Court. A previous jury in Leeds had failed to agree a verdict.

He had followed Miss Fletcher to a Castleford pub where she was drinking with her former patient and new love David Griffin.

On that Thursday night in May 1998, Shanks machine-gunned the 21-year-old to death, firing 15 bullets at her outside the crowded pub.

Shanks denied murder but admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

He told the court that he had suffered mood swings, depression and memory loss since returning from the Gulf War.

His barrister, Timothy Cassel QC, said that Shanks had suffered from increasingly severe symptoms since 1991 as a result of Gulf War Syndrome.

He had been given a series of inoculations before heading out and had been exposed to nerve gas Sarin towards the end of the conflict.

Mr Cassel said: "This is a doctor. This is a man who has devoted his medical career to saving lives, not to destroying them.

"It needs nothing but a bare recitation of the facts of this case to convince anybody that this was the work of a diseased brain."

However, Mr Justice Jowitt told Shanks: "You knew what you were doing when you pulled the trigger and saw her fall for the first time and then fired at her again."

Scottish-born Shanks joined the Hereford-based SAS aged 18 and was the youngest person at that time for a decade to pass the regiment's gruelling selection tests.

He had been mentioned in dispatches for his bravery in rescuing wounded soldiers during a battle when he served with the SAS's D Squadron.

He left the army to train as a doctor and volunteered to serve in the Gulf War.