A professional conman was today jailed for 27 years for the “breathtakingly wicked” murder of a lonely, rich woman.

Rakesh Bhayani, 41, killed Carole Waugh, 49, who worked as an “amateur” escort girl and advertised herself as “poshtottyfun”, in her £600,000 Marylebone flat before plundering her bank account, savings, shares and jewellery.

After the millionaire’s death in April last year he hired women to impersonate her and convince banks to hand over her wealth.

Bhayani was convicted of murder yesterday and today at the Old Bailey Mr Justice Wilkie said he had shown “utter greed” and a “total lack of any regard or respect” for his victim, whose body was so decomposed after being hidden in a bag in a car the pathologist could not determine how she died. He added: “Your actions and your amorality and selfishness overwhelm any notion of decency or restraint. So greedy were you that you did not allow the fact Ms Waugh had been murdered to stand in your way.

“Your actions were breathtakingly wicked.”

Christopher Waugh, 55, a bank manager, told the court his mother died aged 78 after collapsing five days after Ms Waugh’s funeral last year.

Ms Waugh’s body was found in the boot of a car in a New Malden lock up garage three and half months later.

Bhayani had admitted perverting the course of justice by concealing the death. His co-accused Nicholas Kutner, 48, was found not guilty of murder but guilty of perverting the course of justice by concealing the death.

Both men, described in court as professional conmen and lifelong gamblers who knew each other through prison, admitted conspiracy to defraud. A third man, Elie Khoury, 40, of Paddington, was found not guilty of that charge.

Today Mr Waugh said the family’s emotions after first reporting Ms Waugh missing and then hearing she was dead involved “disbelief, dismay and darkness”. He saidin a statement to the court: “Five days after Carole’s funeral, mum collapsed and was taken to hospital.

“On 31 August Mum sadly died, broken-hearted and unable to understand why her daughter had died in such sad and tragic circumstances.” He added: “She was loving, supportive and great fun. Her home visits were memorable. We all looked forward to Carole’s visits, especially Mum ... Happy days indeed. We don’t dwell too much on the length and weight of her Jacob Marley chain.”

Jacob Marley, the ghost in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, is weighted down by a chain forged by his actions during his life.

During the trial the court heard that Ms Waugh had been friends with Bhayani, had lent him £40,000 and visited him in prison. But she found to her cost that he “didn’t really do friends” and on his release he plotted the murder to plunder her fortune.