A taxi driver has been found guilty of the murder of his former partner and mother-of-five Sarah Wellgreen.
Ben Lacomba, 38, was convicted at Woolwich Crown Court on Monday.
Wellgreen, who went missing in October last year, was last seen in the Bazes Shaw area of New Ash Green.
The 46-year-old’s body has not yet been found and police said the only thing missing from her home was her black iPhone, and there had been no new transactions on her bank or credit cards.
Lacomba and the victim split up in 2014 but still lived together at their home in New Ash Green, Kent, at the time of the beautician’s disappearance.
During the three-week trial at Woolwich Crown Court, the court heard the couple had met online in 2004 but by the time of her disappearance their relationship was marked by “tensions and problems”, prosecutor Alison Morgan QC said.
Lacomba was allegedly motivated to kill Wellgreen over fears of losing his family home and access to his children.
He said he was asleep in bed on the night of the alleged killing. He is accused of switching off a CCTV system in the middle of the night and parking his car in an unusual spot in order to evade detection.
It took the jury three-and-a-half hours to reach its verdict.
A date for sentencing has yet to be decided.
Detective chief inspector Ivan Beasley, of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate, said: “No other person came to that house that night, Sarah didn’t walk out of there by herself and Lacomba had clearly researched how to leave the area without being seen – or so he thought.
“Lacomba refuses to tell us where Sarah is, which makes it difficult to find her and provide her family with some of the closure they so desperately need.”
He added: “Sarah had every reason to live. She had secured a new, better-paid job days before her disappearance, was looking forward to one of her children’s birthdays and was getting into position to buy the family home outright.
“While we are yet to locate Sarah’s body, it is clear to us that Sarah is no longer alive due to the inactivity of her bank and phone accounts, no contact with friends or family and the fact she left the home without any of her personal items or shown any plans to leave. She didn’t even take her car.
“But when you look at Lacomba, knowing what we know about Sarah and you begin to prove his account of what happened is untruthful, that he had reason to kill Sarah to avoid being left behind by her, it leaves us with little choice but to conclude he killed her.”