The Irish province were 22-6 down at half-time but, with fly half Sexton to the fore, they stunned a Northampton side who could not manage a single score in the second half.
Ireland international Sexton scored two tries, just after the break, that knocked the stuffing out of Northampton to add to three conversions and four penalties for a personal haul of 28 points.
Leinster becomes the fifth side in the history of the competition to win it more than once, joining Wasps, Toulouse, Leicester and Munster.
But for 40 minutes it looked like 2000 winners Northampton would be making up the quintet.
But Sexton, a pivotal figure in Ireland's Six Nations win over England in Dublin in March, did a similar job at club level as Leinster made it two European Cup triumphs in three years.
Leinster and Ireland great Brian O'Driscoll later revealed it was Sexton's "inspirational words" at the interval which helped restore the team's self-belief.
"We had some choice words at half-time," O'Driscoll told Sky Sports.
"We knew if we could hold on to the ball we had them in trouble.
"There were some inspirational words from Jonathan at half-time which picked us up, he was a man possessed. He said this game would be remembered if we came back and we will remember this for a long time."
Northampton coach Jim Mallinder said his first-choice team had paid the price for playing two gruelling games on successive weekends, following their English playoff-semi defeat at the hands of arch-rivals Leicester.
"We were tired, you could tell at half-time," he said.
"Leinster managed to take their five best players off in their game (last week). We could not do that against Leicester."
-AFP
Tags: sport, rugby-union, ireland, united-kingdom First posted May 22, 2011 10:43:00
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