Two killers who subjected a woman to four hours of “unimaginable” torture and rape before burning her alive in a car have been told they will never be freed from prison. 

Stephen Unwin and William McFall had already been jailed for unrelated murders and freed when they set their sights on Quyen Ngoc Nguyen, a Vietnamese mother-of-two.

Unwin, 40, ran a property maintenance company and met his victim because she helped find homes for other members of the Vietnamese community.

He lured her to his house in Sunderland under the pretext of making a visit to a home on 14 August.

Ms Nguyen, 28, left her job as a nail technician as normal and was last seen alive arriving in Oswald Terrace, Houghton-le-Spring, at 7.30pm that evening.

Newcastle Crown Court heard that 51-year-old McFall was already laying in wait for the horrific attack, when Ms Nguyen was dragged through the house and tortured to extract information including her PIN number.

Both men participated in the attack, which saw Unwin rape her himself and with other objects, and ended with their victim being partially suffocated.

Ms Nguyen was injected with a syringe filled with whiskey before Unwin took her bank cards to a nearby Co-op to withdraw £500.

He returned to the house and as she lay incapacitated on the floor, the pair tidied up and casually cooked and ate a curry.

They disposed of Ms Nguyen by wrapping her in a dust sheet and putting her unconscious in the back seat of her Audi, driving it to allotments and setting it on fire.

Forensic evidence presented to the court found it was likely that she was still alive when the car was set alight.

Afterwards, McFall and Unwin took a smiling selfie together while during a trip to withdraw cash from the young mother’s bank account. 

Mr Justice Morris said the full horror of what she was subjected to was only known to the two murders, sentencing them both to full life terms without opportunity for parole.

“Quyen Nguyen was a young, healthy and lively woman, a mother of two young children and much loved by her family both here and in Vietnam,” the judge told a sentencing hearing on Wednesday.

“It is not possible for any of us to imagine the horrific ordeal to which she was subjected to over a number of hours on that night, but terrifying it most certainly was.”

Both defendants denied all allegations and McFall heckled the judge from the dock as the sentence was read.

Mr Justice Morris called him an “extremely violent man capable of monstrous behaviour”, while describing Unwin as a “calculating, manipulating and ruthless killer” who had both sexual and financial motivations.

The judge did not find that the murder was racially aggravated but the killers had swapped text messages including a reference to “raping the chink”.

Stephen Unwin was convicted of rape and murder and John McFall was convicted of murder (Northumbria Police)

The pair were already running a criminal enterprise involving stealing highly valuable cannabis crops, including the use of violence and attempts to procure guns. 

Unwin has previous convictions for burglary and arson, while McFall has been convicted of numerous offences including for robbery, arson, and possessing firearms and offensive weapons. 

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