A Loyalist hitman arrested in Sussex has been jailed for a minimum of 22 years for murdering Northern Ireland lawyer Pat Finucane.

Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement he will be seeking early release.

Ken Barrett, 41, a police informer, was part of the team which gunned down Mr Finucane in front of his wife Geraldine and their three children at the family's north Belfast home in February 1989.

Mr Finucane's wife Geraldine was wounded in the shooting and is pressing the Government to hold a full judicial inquiry into the assassination.

Investigations by Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir John Stevens have confirmed collusion by the intelligence agencies and police.

Mr Justice Weir sentenced Barrett at Belfast Crown Court after his guilty plea on Monday.

He told him: "I have searched in vain for any semblance of genuine remorse in your various accounts of your participation in this crime and have found, on the contrary, only boastful expressions of self satisfaction."

Barrett has been held in an isolation cell at the top security Maghaberry prison near Lisburn, County Antrim, since May of last year when he was arrested near Eastbourne.

He had been living there in a so-called Loyalist safe house after fleeing Northern Ireland.

Barrett had claimed Mr Finucane, 39, was a republican and IRA man - an allegation categorically rejected by his family.

Sir John Stevens also insisted there was no evidence of this.