A man serving a life sentence for murdering his pregnant girlfriend has owned up to an armed robbery 15 years ago.

Adrian Patchett, 29, was jailed for a minimum of 14 years in February 2007 for stabbing Shirley Batt in the neck.

Today, Patchett was back in the dock at Bradford Crown Court to be imprisoned for four years, to run concurrently with his life sentence.

Prosecutor Abigail Langford said Patchett owned up from prison to being one of two robbers who seized cash from a shop till on December 4, 1995.

Miss Langford said Patchett, then 15, was masked and he and his accomplice wielded baseball bats and pickaxe handles.

They terrorised the shopkeeper in Y T P Stores, in Abscott Lane, Low Moor, Bradford, into handing over £150.

The raiders stuffed the money into a pillowcase and fled.

Judge Jonathan Rose told Patchett he was not adding to his time behind bars.

He had volunteered the information to the police and the robbery was a long time ago.

Patchett was convicted by a jury of murdering Miss Batt, 27, at their home in Richardson Avenue, Odsal, Bradford, in September 2006. At the time of the killing, he was on bail for two assaults on Miss Batt and had absconded from a bail hostel when he murdered her.

After stabbing her in the neck, Patchett changed out of his bloodstained clothes and left the house to buy heroin. He returned home where he laid next to his victim and injected himself with the drug with the intention of taking his own life.

The pair were found by Miss Batt’s son who saw his mother lying in a pool of her own blood clutching a family photograph.