LONDON, (Reuters) – A father who made a farewell  video of his two young children before strangling them with  computer cables was convicted of their murder yesterday and  jailed for 28 years.

Petros Williams, 37, killed his four-year-old daughter  Yolanda and two-year-old son Theo last October after the  breakdown of his marriage to their mother.

Williams recorded a video, addressed to his wife, in which  he could be heard asking the children to say: “we love you  mummy” and “we will miss you”, before telling them to look into  the camera and “say ‘bye’“ as they waved to their mother.  Zimbabwean-born Williams, who denied strangling the pair, had  discovered his wife Morongoe Molemohi had started using dating  websites to see other men. He kept a diary of her internet  exchanges before ordering her out of the family home, the Press  Association reported.

“Williams is a cruel man who took the lives of two beautiful  children,” said senior investigator Vinny Chadwick. “He sought  to control his wife and when she would not submit he took away  those she loved most.”

The couple had moved to the UK in 2002 after Williams was  granted asylum but the marriage suffered long-term difficulties  and both had affairs. One of several other messages left around Williams’ flat  read: “Sorry my lovely Yolly and Theo. Sorry mummy decided to  leave us for a new boyfriend.”

Molemohi, who had come to the flat to visit the children  found Williams dazed but uninjured lying on the bed alongside  the two children, who had internet connection cords round their  necks, Manchester Crown Court heard.

“The pain will never go away,” she said in a statement after  the verdict. “I brought them into the world with the unspoken  promise that I would always protect them and at the time they  needed that the most I could not be there.”