A Japanese man was sentenced to life imprisonment on Thursday for the murder in 2007 of British teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker, whose battered body was found in a sand-filled bathtub.

Public prosecutors had demanded life imprisonment for Tatsuya Ichihashi, 32, who was charged with raping and murdering the 22-year-old English teacher at his apartment.

Ichihashi - who spent more than two and a half years on the run and had plastic surgery to evade capture - admitted raping and killing Hawker but had told the court earlier this month said he took her life accidentally.

Hawker's parents took part in the trial which that took place between July 4 and 12 at a court in Chiba, Japan, including taking the witness stand.

Their daughter Lindsay, from a village near Coventry in central England, was 22 years old when her body - naked and bound at the wrists and ankles with plastic cord - was found in a bathtub filled with sand on the balcony of Ichihashi's apartment.

The autopsy showed she died of suffocation, and prosecutors said Ichihashi strangled her after the rape.