Man sentenced to life imprisonment for murder of his partner, who died 13 years after the brutal attack

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A man who murdered his partner by hitting her on the head with a hammer has been sentenced to life in prison more than a decade after the frenzied attack.

Trevor Baker, 53, suffered irreparable brain injuries to his ex-girlfriend Carolyn Kemp after hitting her on the head with a rubber mallet in Romford, Essex, in 2009.

Mrs Kemp lay in a pool of blood with a gaping hole in her forehead for 24 hours before she was found by her worried family.

She succumbed to her injuries in September 2022 after suffering aspiration pneumonia, which she would have survived had Baker not attacked her.

Baker could not accept that she had ended the relationship six months before his brutal attack, which left her quadriplegic.

The couple were together for nine years, but after the separation Baker became depressed, drank heavily and was “fixated” on Ms Kemp, said prosecutor Henrietta Paget KC.

He confided to a neighbor that he planned to give away the family pet, a Staffordshire bull terrier, and said of his ex-partner: “I have to kill her, she has to go.”

During the attack, her then four-year-old son Callum heard a crashing noise and saw his father repeatedly hit his mother on the head “as hard as he could”, the court was told.

Baker left the house with the children and drove to his mother’s house in Mrs Kemp’s car. His sweater was covered in blood.

He told his mother that he hit Mrs Kemp with a rubber mallet, then called an ambulance and left the door open – but that never happened.

In an emotional statement to the court, Callum Baker said: “I witnessed my father’s assault on my mother.” Later, he said, Baker dragged him “by the neck” to the car and left his mother to die.

He said: “Without the support of my family, I would not be the person you see here today. However, the attack has left me with severe psychological scars that will stay with me for the rest of my life.”

He said his father was a “danger to society” and expressed the hope that he would “never see the light of day.”

In mitigating the sentence, Rudi Fortson KC said the defendant recognised that he had destroyed the lives of two families and that his children had been “significantly affected” by his actions.

He said: “For these reasons, the defendant, to his great credit, pleaded guilty to attempted murder in 2010 and pleaded guilty to murder 15 years later.”

If you need unbiased information and support regarding domestic violence and abuse, women can contact the Free national hotline for domestic violence casesoperated by Refuge, available free of charge 24 hours a day on 0808 2000 247.

Men can call Advice line for men on 0808 8010 327 (Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.) or visit the web chat (Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. to 4 p.m.).