A rapist who was under threat of deportation has been jailed for life for stabbing a couple to death in their Dundee flat.

Polish national Krzysztof Gadecki was ordered to serve at least 26 years in prison after the savage attack on Ronald Kidd and his partner Holly Alexander last December.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard he then returned to ransack the property on Rosefield Street for valuables.

A judge told Gadecki: "These were brutal murders of two people committed in their own home.

"Whatever difficulties they had experienced in their lives they did not deserve this death."

Lord Boyd of Duncansby said both victims left children.

Gadecki, 38, arrived in the Scotland in 2009 after accumulating jail sentences totalling ten years in his native Poland for offences including rape, robbery and fraud.

In 2015, the Home Office served him with a deportation notice on the basis of the rape and robbery convictions but Gadecki remained at liberty in Scotland after appealing against the move.

A decision had not been made in the appeal when the killer knifed his victims to death.

Father-of-four Mr Kidd - two of whose children predeceased him - and American mother-of-three Ms Alexander died following a hail of knife blows inflicted on them by Gadecki.

Mr Kidd, 40, suffered a total of 23 stab wounds to his head, neck and torso in the attack.

One went through his neck and another penetrated the sac around his heart.

He also suffered defensive injuries as he tried to fend off the killer.

Ms Alexander suffered a total of nine knife wounds, including a 17cm wound that went through a lung and damaged an artery.

Following the brutal attack heroin addict Gadecki, who had previously tattooed his victims, went back to the flat and took wallets, cash, watches and drugs.

The couple were discovered after a security firm failed to make contact with Mr Kidd, who was electronically tagged under a court restriction of liberty order, and police were alerted.

The lock was forced on the top floor flat the and they were found in a blood stained bedroom.

Gadecki, of Benvie Road, Dundee, had denied murdering his victims between December 8 and 11 last year.

A jury took just 40 minutes to unanimously find him guilty of both crimes.

He had claimed in a special defence that he had acted in self-defence after the deceased attacked him, but his claim was comprehensively rejected.

Advocate depute Bill MacVicar said on the day before the murders Gadecki had no money and no drugs and was desperate to get some.

Gadecki, who led his own defence, replied: "No, that's not true. I always arranged something for myself."

The prosecutor said after the verdicts that New York-born Ms Alexander had emigrated to Scotland in 2014 with her husband and children to open a takeaway business in Dundee.

He said: "She was at that time recovering from heroin addiction but unfortunately relapsed and started to abuse heroin again."

Her relationship with her husband broke down.

Gadecki was subjected to abuse from the public benches of the court as he was led away.

The murderer, who slashed himself in prison with a razor blade during the trial, turned to members of the public, including family and friends, and said he was sorry.