The 55-year-old was ordered to serve a minimum of 19 years before he can apply for parole, at a hearing in the Royal Court on Monday.
The labourer, who was born in Bath but moved to Jersey as a young child, killed his secret lover, 37-year-old Zsuzsanna Besenyei, in May last year before hiding her body in the boot of her car for three days and then dumping it at a remote western beach known as Stinky Bay.
HMP La Moye Governor and head of the Jersey Prison Service, Nick Cameron, said it was normal procedure for offenders in Jersey who receive life sentences to be transferred to the UK.
Warn, who was found guilty by a majority verdict of murder and perverting the course of justice, is due to appeal against his conviction at a hearing before the Court of Appeal on Monday 22 July. In a brief statement, Mr Cameron said he could not comment on individual cases but added: ‘Life sentence prisoners will normally be transferred to the UK where they will spend their sentence. We only explore this once all sentencing aspects are completed, including any appeals.’
States police Chief Inspector Craig Jackson, the senior investigating officer in the investigation, codenamed Operation Duke, told the JEP after Monday’s sentencing that police work would continue while there was an appeal.
‘We will work with the Crown Advocates and the team at the Law Officers’ Department and we will work right up to that appeal in answering any questions that the court needs answering,’ he said.
He added: ‘Zsuzsanna came to live in Jersey seven years ago, she had a good job, she had friends and her family thought she would be safe here. Warn went to considerable lengths to cover his tracks and avoid detection. The sentence shows the gravity of the crime, and although nothing will bring Zsuzsanna back, we hope this result will go some way to helping the Besenyei family to heal and come to terms with life without Zsuzsanna.’
