Woman woke up in shallow grave to realise fiancé strangled & left her for dead(Photos)

A bride-to-be woke up to find herself covered in branches and leaves after her fiancé strangled her and tried to hide her unconscious body.

Stacey Gwilym, 34, managed to crawl out of the shallow grave after lover Keith Hughes left her for dead along a coastal path.

Painter and decorator Hughes, 39, had attempted to hide Ms Gwilym's body under bushes after the harrowing attack.

When police arrested Hughes he told them:

"You'll never find her" but he was shocked to be told: "She's alive".

He now faces life imprisonment after being found guilty unanimously by a jury of attempted murder.

He said:

"We were both shouting and arguing, things became heated. I lost my temper. I just wanted her to stop saying things about me.

"We were both saying horrible things to each other. She was hitting me, going mad. I wanted her to calm down."

Ms Gwilym lost consciousness and fell to the floor.Hughes said:

"I panicked. I thought: 'What have I done?" I was not intending to kill her.

"I put her in the bushes and put some branches over her. I just felt terrible about what I had done. I thought she was dead. I just left."

She told police she had "blacked out" during a row and then woke up with the foliage over her.

She said:

"I don't remember everything that happened. I just went for help. My life will never be the same again."

Hughes admitted taking the key to her car and her Santander bank card after the assault.

He then walked back into the village of Mumbles and drove her car to his flat, where he drank some vodka before crashing the car.

Hughes said:

 "I cannot remember drinking but I must have because I was drunk when the police arrested me.

"I wish I could turn the clock back. I regret what I did that day," he added.

Hughes had been jailed in 2013 for three years and nine months for three separate assaults on Ms Gwilym and one of false imprisonment.

He said while he was in prison Stacey wrote to him and after his release they resumed their relationship and in July, 2015, she agreed to marry him.

Hughes said he had never intended to resume his relationship with Ms Gwilym and had asked her to marry him only "to make her happy."

He told the court Ms Gwilym had accused him of stealing money from her and said she would get him sent back to prison.

Daily Mirror