The 40 Year Old Virgin actor who stabbed his ex-girlfriend more than 20 times in a vicious murder attempt has been sentenced to life in prison.

Shelley Malil

, 46 - who played Steve Carell's workmate Haziz in the hit film - cried in the San Diego courtroom during the hearing tonight.

He never faced his victim but he did apologise for the brutal attack saying: 'I am at a loss for words right now.

'I failed miserably, not only as a human being but as a father, son, uncle, brother, friend.

What I did to Kendra, I don't have the words to express my remorse.'

Clearly shaken, and taking deep breaths, Beebe - a 37-year-old mother-of-two - faced her attacker as she gave a heartfelt victim impact statement.

Beebe was having a drink with a male friend while her children - then four and two - slept in her Carlsbad home in Southern California at the time of the incident.

She said: 'During the course of the trial some people were interested in this case because in the past, in his former life, he [Malil] appeared in a beer commercial...and in a movie that some people found funny.

'

Steve Carell

must want this case to go away so that his good name is no longer associated with the likes of him.

'But, now, he is nothing more than a shell of a man convicted of [the] premeditated, attempted murder of a helpless woman, whose defenceless young children slept upstairs...'

Beebe had broken up with Malil a few weeks before the attack.

On August 10, 2008 he walked on to the victim's patio where she was having a drink with a friend.

During the trial Beebe says she felt 'primal, instinctual, animal fear,' when she saw the actor approach her with his hand behind his back.

She says that moments later she saw a 'flash of silver' and the actor stabbed her in the side three times with a steak knife.

He eventually stabbed her 23 times and left her with more than 40 lacerations.

In addition to almost slicing off her chin, Malil punctured both her lungs and stabbed her all over her body including her neck, back and one of her breasts.

Beebe now calls her ex-boyfriend a bad 'actor' who lied unconvincingly on the stand during the September court case.