THE woman Rod Hills tried to save from a life of prostitution and drugs was today beginning a 17-year jail sentence for murdering a client.

Vice girl Julie Long was helped by the former York council leader in 2003 to kick her heroin habit and give up streetwalking.

He paid for Long, who became his girlfriend, to go on a detoxification course after she went to live with him in his home in York, Leeds Crown Court was told.

Things were going well until he died suddenly of a heart attack in July 2003. After that, the court heard his family paid her £4,000 to move out, and she started taking drugs again and went back into prostitution in Leeds.

Then last January she stabbed a crack cocaine dealer six times, piercing his heart with one of the blows.

A jury yesterday decided that Long, 29, had murdered West Indian-born Morraine De Lashley, and she was sentenced to life imprisonment, with the judge saying she should serve a minimum of 17 years before she can be considered for release.

Long had denied the charge, admitting that she had stabbed Mr De Lashley, but claiming she had acted in self-defence after the 52-year-old had tried to force himself on her in his Leeds flat.

But Andrew Dallas, prosecuting, said her "real motives were to do with money and drugs".

He said Long had known Mr De Lashley had a substantial amount of cash in his possession, and she was desperate to buy heroin.

The jury was told that Long had come to regard Mr Hills as a "good friend" in 2003.

She said he had bought her clothes, and she had started going to the gym. After he died, his family paid her £4,000 to leave his home in Huntington Road, York, and she took some furniture with her.

She sold her story to the press, "spicing it up" so she could obtain as much money as possible - indicative of her willingness to lie, said Mr Dallas. A friend of Long, Ken Thompson, told the Evening Press before yesterday's verdict that she had told him Mr Hills, pictured, was a "nice guy".

He said: "She was clearly very happy. But when he died her world collapsed. There was nobody to support her, and she went back to her old ways."

Justice For Women, a feminist organisation which campaigns against the "failure of the law to deal effectively with men's violence against women", last night condemned Long's conviction, branding it a "travesty of justice".

It claimed she had ended up with a life sentence, after escaping from a life and death struggle against a man who had tried to rape her.

Politician's rescue of prostitute

ROD Hills, who died of natural causes in a flat in Chapeltown, Leeds, aged 57, had dominated politics in York for many years.

The Labour group leader on City of York Council was awarded the CBE in 1999 for services to local government.

But he stood down in 2002 after becoming involved in a high-profile criminal investigation, which led to him being charged with various serious offences, including blackmail and perverting the course of justice.

The charges were eventually dropped, with Mr Hills claiming he was the victim of a police witch hunt.

Speaking to the Evening Press in September 2003, Julie Long said Mr Hills had rescued her from a life of prostitution and drugs after he had picked her up while she was streetwalking.

She said she had been put into care when she was only two, had started drinking and smoking cannabis in her teens and began using heroin when she was 20. She said Mr Hills had paid £3,000 for her to go on a five-day detoxification course in Harrogate.

"He took me out of that life and gave me a new life," she said.

The Evening Press did not pay Long for her story, but it is understood she was later paid for an interview for a woman's magazine.

Updated: 09:26 Wednesday, November 30, 2005