A drunk who beat up women

KILLER Robert Trigg was a drunk who had a long history of domestic violence against women, his trial heard.

Yet he was able to convince police and coroners he had nothing to two with the deaths of two girlfriends.

In the case of his second victim, Susan Nicholson, 52, he callously sought to deflect blame by suggesting her drinking had led to her death.

Miss Nicholson, who was born in Dulwich in south London, was a former executive at the royal Coutts bank. She had begun drinking socially while at Coutts, which she joined aged 17. She rose to head a mortgage accounts department and left after ten years to have children.

But by 2006, alcohol was a problem. Her marriage broke down in 2008, and as her drinking increased she first moved in with her parents in Worthing, West Sussex, and then to a hostel. Fatefully she met alcoholic Trigg – not knowing that he had killed his first victim Caroline Devlin in 2006 and got away with it.

Miss Nicholson bought a flat in Worthing for them to live in, but within months, Trigg had killed her, telling the coroner that her heavy drinking was to blame.

His trial heard details of a disturbingly long history of violence to girlfriends.

He was convicted of assaulting Susan Holland, 38, in 2003, and Miss Devlin said the year before her death that she ‘wouldn’t see her 40th birthday’.

Trigg was cautioned for assaulting Miss Nicholson in March 2011, the month before he murdered her. In 2015, he was convicted of harassing Deirdre Loveridge, and last year he assaulted Caroline Yarwood – even as he was finally under investigation for his two killings.