A FYLDE woman has spoken of her "lucky escape" as her gangster ex-fiance begins a life sentence for murdering a Scottish teenager.

Last week the High Court in Edinburgh gave Billy Ferris, 53, of Irvine, Ayrshire, a life prison sentence for the brutal slaying of 15-year-old Jason Hutchison in July 2001.

Ferris, a notorious Glasgow-based gang boss, carved open his young victim's face and set fire to his body after mistaking the teenager for his 18-year-old brother, David Hutchison.

After the sentencing, former Blackpool woman, Lorraine Singleton, spoke of her experiences as the fiance of Ferris when he was on the run from a previous murder sentence in 1993.

Lorraine, 49, was living on the Fylde coast when she met Glasgow-based gang boss, Billy Ferris, 53, in a Blackpool nightclub ten years ago.

After a whirlwind romance, lasting only a few days, the pair became engaged when Ferris proposed with a £1,000 diamond engagement ring and moved-in with the mother-of-four.

Unknown to Lorraine her fiance was the most wanted man in Scotland after escaping from Perth Prison where he was serving a life sentence for murder.

She said: ''After a few days, he told me he was on parole for killing a guy who had got his wife pregnant while he was inside for armed robbery.

''He said he really regretted it and I believed him.

''It seems crazy now but I didn't care. He was so kind and nice and I'd fallen head over heels in love with him.

''Although Billy was on the run, we went out to restaurants and went drinking and had a great time."

In the weeks that followed Lorraine began to see a different side to the volatile Ferris who would receive strange late-night visitors, carried a loaded handgun and flew into a jealous rage if Lorraine spoke to male friends.

The police re-arrested Ferris six weeks after he met Lorraine.

She was given an 18-month conditional discharge for harbouring a known criminal by a judge who described her actions as "a crime of passion".

Lorraine alternated between Blackpool and the Ferris family home in Glasgow.

But she soon became sick of the Ferris's and her fiance's efforts to control her from his prison cell and, after four years, returned to the Fylde coast.

On his release in 1999 Ferris made his way back to Blackpool and he tried to rekindle his romance with Lorraine but she wasn't interested.

Just two years later he mistakenly attacked and killed Jason Hutchison after the victim's brother, David, allegedly assaulted Ferris's then wife, Carol Anne, in a street fight.

Lorraine said: ''It makes me sick to think of what he did to that boy.

"To say I had a lucky escape getting out of that relationship is an under-statement. He's an absolute animal.''

Lorraine emigrated to Australia in January this year after marrying her fifth husband, a butcher called Mark.