THE mum of murdered care assistant Nicola Sutton has given evidence at the start of a six-day inquest into the death of her daughter held at the town hall today.

Lynn Sutton, aged 52, of Neville Avenue, Orford, wept as she told Coroner for Cheshire Nicholas Rheinberg how Nicola’s ex-boyfriend Barry Stone, of Knutsford Road in Grappenhall, had first ‘groomed’ her daughter and then began the assaults which would eventually lead to her murder in the early hours of September 26, 2006.

Mrs Sutton said: “Nicola was a very outgoing person, she had lots of friends and a good social life. She was very popular.”

But within months of meeting Stone in 2003, she had become withdrawn and distant from her friends and family, had lost weight and was starting to appear with cuts and bruises to her face and body.

The inquest heard how the family of Nicola, who was 22 when she died, had tried to protect her from Stone, who was branded an ‘animal’ by Mrs Sutton, when they felt the judicial system was failing them.

Months before Nicola died, she had told her family and friends that she feared Stone, a drug-dealer with a raft of convictions for domestic violence who was well-known to the authorities, would eventually kill her.

Mrs Sutton added: “He told her as long as he was alive she was not going to get away from him. She would not be with anyone else – if he was not with her no-one else could be and wherever she went he would find her.”

The remainder of the inquest is expected to tackle Nicola’s family’s damning indictments of the police, probation service and the prison service – all of which they claim played a contributory part in her murder by their failings in protecting her.

Speaking to the jury at the start of the inquest, Mr Rheinberg said it would be necessary for the members to look at the potentially defective system put in place to protect UK citizens.

The inquest continues.

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