KILLER Simon Hall is due to be sentenced today for the murder of a Suffolk pensioner.Six weeks after a jury returned a majority verdict convicting the 25-year-old of the murder of Capel widow Joan Albert, a London judge will today deliver his jail sentence.

KILLER Simon Hall is due to be sentenced today for the murder of a Suffolk pensioner.

Six weeks after a jury returned a majority verdict convicting the 25-year-old of the murder of Capel widow Joan Albert, a London judge will today deliver his jail sentence.

Hall faces a mandatory life term for murder but the judge will set the minimum jail term he will serve before being able to apply for parole.

His mother, Lynn, whose wails of grief filled Norwich Crown Court when her son was found guilty of stabbing the 79-year-old to death, will attend today's High Court hearing.

An appeal to free Hall, formerly of Hill House Road, Ipswich, was launched by his friends and family, after the majority verdict at Norwich Crown Court on February 28.

After hearing the verdict, Hall's solicitor Alan Caldwell said his client was 'shattered' and would be appealing against the murder verdict.

He said: "We will be putting together an appeal and we will be using every effort to insure this verdict is overturned and justice is served."

Throughout his three-week trial Hall denied stabbing Mrs Albert, whose body was found by neighbours in the hallway of Boydlands home in Capel St Mary in December 2001.

The popular widow had been repeatedly stabbed with one of her own kitchen knives.

Police maintained her death was the result of a burglary which she stumbled upon in the early hours of that fateful night.

Hall was living at his parents' Capel St Mary address at the time of the murder and said the fibres must have got into his room via his mother who enjoyed a close friendship with Mrs Albert.