THE 12th Earl of Shaftesbury, Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, has told of his murdered father's tragic demise which led him into the arms of the money-driven woman who plotted to kill him.

Jamila M'Barek and brother Mohammed were each sentenced to 25 years in prison for their part in the murder of the 10th Earl, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, who had a 9,000-acre estate near Wimborne.

After the four-day trial in Nice, France, the Earl's son said his father's problems with alcohol and loneliness blighted him throughout his 66-year life.

"I think it was not just towards the end of his life. His problems stemmed from childhood and losing his father early on, and he had a problem with alcohol," he said.

"He suffered from depression and he used alcohol to find a way through that. It was not the way to approach it.

"He was extremely lonely. It was very clear that a lot of the women he was with were just using him."

Ms M'Barek, 45, and the late Earl of Shaftesbury met in 2002 while she was working as an escort girl.

She became his third wife nine months later, but stood for trial last week, where she was found guilty of conspiring to murder the aristocrat after he allegedly told her he wanted a divorce, cutting any potential inheritance.

Ms M'Barek was said to have paid her brother 150,000 euros (£105,000) to kill her estranged husband.

The Earl's badly decomposed body was discovered in the Alps in April 2005, five months after he went missing from a hotel in the French Riviera.

The Earl's son sat in court throughout the four-day hearing with his mother Christina Cassell and aunt, Lady Frances Ashley-Cooper.

He said afterwards that he believed "justice was done", and that the family were satisfied with the 25-year jail terms handed to the siblings.

"During this trial we have heard the words of Mohammed and Jamila and we have seen the evidence brought before us," he said.

"It further confirms the type of people we thought they were - cold, deceitful, and without compassion for a man they murdered and betrayed.

"I don't understand how people can place no value on human life, and I truly pity them."

After the trial, the 12th Earl described what he believed was the "catalyst" in ending his father's relationship with the former escort.

"I think there was one incident where she took all the furniture out of their apartment and said she was moving it to Tunisia as a threat," he said.

"It was mostly family possessions, things handed down to him.

"I think that was a catalyst. But my father was quite fickle like that."

Mr Ashley-Cooper added that he was "hugely frustrated" and saddened that his father was unable to confide in family or friends about his problems.

"I spent my whole life trying to get through to him and get him to get help," he said.

"He always cast that off and ran from his problems but his issues stem from so far back."