HEARTBROKEN PARENTS BLAST ERRORS Free to kill our girl and unborn baby

A MURDER victim’s parents are talking for the first time about fighting for justice for their daughter and unborn child.

Eystna Blunnie was kicked to death just two days before her baby was due.

And parents Kevin and Sue believe her murderer was free to kill because of errors by police and prosecutors.

Their lives were devastated when 20-year-old Eystna’s evil, controlling ex-fiancé lured her to her death.

Tony Mclernon, 24, tricked Eystna into meeting him with a text saying: “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

He killed her and their unborn baby by kicking and stamping on them viciously in the street. Nearby residents heard her screams during the brutal attack.

Kevin, 59, went out searching for missing Eystna the next morning and stumbled across the police crime scene.

Today the couple reveal to the Sunday People how police and the Crown Prosecution Service failed to do more to prevent Eystna’s murder in 2012.

They say: “Their mistakes cost our daughter her life.”

And they are backing our campaign to protect people from stalkers and violent partners such as Mclernon.

Two months before her death Eystna went to police station in Harlow, Essex, clearly bruised from an assault.

Violence

Mclernon did not think their unborn child was his and had said: “I’m going to stab her. I’m going to kill her.” He had warned her: “You won’t see the birth.”

Essex police arrested him but were apparently advised to let him go because of insufficient evidence.

Police assessed Eystna as at “medium risk” of domestic violence and a note on her file stated: “He has the potential to seriously harm Eystna. However, they are not living together.”

At Eystna’s inquest, former chief crown prosecutor for the east of England, Grace Ononiwu, said a lawyer had been wrong not to charge Mclernon with assault.

Det Chief Insp Martin Passmore, who led the murder inquiry, said his force was aware of Mclernon’s record of domestic violence with previous partners.

Sue, 56, said: “If he had been charged, we would have been more aware. It wouldn’t have happened. There’s no ‘probably’ about it.”

In 2013 a Chelmsford crown court jury took 45 minutes to convict Mclernon of murder and child destruction.

He was jailed for life and has to serve at least 27 years.

Kevin still recalls breaking the heartbreaking news of their daughter’s death to Sue and how their world changed.

He said: “I just looked at her and said, ‘I’m so sorry.’

“The sound of that scream will never go away.”

Eystna was so badly beaten that a lorry driver who spotted “a bundle in the middle of the road” thought she must have been hit by a vehicle.

Mclernon, claimed other men had murdered her but he called a pal on Eystna’s phone and said: “I think I’ve killed her.”

Sue said animal-lover Eystna had been lured to her death by the “surprise” of Mclernon of seeing his family’s dog. They first met in April 2011 were engaged three months later and Eystna was pregnant that October. She left home but when Kevin and Sue tracked her down six months later they were shocked. Their previously bright and bubbly daughter was now skinny and nervous, wearing dirty clothes and had sores on her face.

Sue said violent and coercive Mclernon cut her off from friends and family. He banned her from having a bath or flushing the toilet at night and made her pay her benefits into his account.

Sue first knew Mclernon was beating her daughter when she spotted a massive bruise on her left arm. Ashamed, Estyna told her she had got it in a playfight.

Kevin and Sue called their dead