A shoddy builder faces at least 21 years in jail today after strangling a Tottenham nurse with a shirt.

Malaysian Mei Choo Ngan, 54, was working for St Ann's Hospital in Tottenham when she was attacked and killed in her home in July 2007.

Illegal immigrant Tian Chen, 33, of Lordship Lane in Wood Green, strangled Ms Ngan because she was "very stingy" in paying for building work on her Palmers Green house, a jury heard.

Chen, who claimed he suffocated Ms Ngan by accident, was found guilty of murder at the Old Bailey this week and sentenced to serve a minimum of 21 years today.

He had been recommended to Ms Ngan by a friend to renovate the bedrooms in her house before her parents visited.

The work was completed on July 2 but she had asked him to redo a part of the job. Prosecutor Zoe Johnson said: "It appears she had not paid the bill in full because of some outstanding work that had to be done."

Chen admitted he planned to burgle the nurse's home after Ms Ngan complained. When she disturbed him in her bedroom he battered about the head, throttled her with a shirt and tried to set fire to the body.

Chen, who has a history of stealing from homes he worked on, was caught after leaving his bloodstained trousers at the scene.

Ms Ngan was last seen at work in St Ann's on Thursday, July 5 2007 and was captured on CCTV at Bounds Green tube station on her way home around 5pm.

Miss Johnson said: "That was the last time anyone saw her alive apart from her killer. She was murdered sometime that night. When her body was found she was wearing the clothes she had changed into to go to bed."

When the nurse of 30 years failed to turn up for work the next day or meet her cousin Ho Kin Wing who was over from Paris, he called the police who broke into her house and found her lying on her bed.

She had been beaten and strangled with a shirt knotted around her neck in the master bedroom before being dragged bleeding into the second bedroom.

After the murder Chen fled to Manchester and then Liverpool before being arrested at Liverpool Lime Street Station on July 14.

In a statement read out in court, Mr Wing, said: "The cruel death of Mei has impacted on the family in so many big ways, especially in the manner in which she was killed.

"The family loved Mei very much. The senseless killing of Mei has left me and my family in shock. Mum is still grieving and blames herself for Mei's death.

"The society has unceremoniously lost an upright and model member. Mei's departure can never be replaced."

Detective Chief Inspector John Macdonald said: "This was a very sad case involving a hard working honest and well liked lady, who had the misfortune to encounter someone like Chen.

"We will never know the sequence of events which took place at the house on the night of the murder, but at least today justice has been achieved and Mei's family know that the person who killed her has been convicted."