‘WORSE THAN ANIMALS’
Dad’ s fury as torture killers jailed for life:
A woman will spend at least 17 years behind bars for the murder of her boyfriend who was tied up and tortured at his home.
Mark Shaw, whose family described him as a “peacemaker”, was bound, beaten, bitten, gagged, attacked with weapons and stabbed to death in a vicious attack in Grange Villa, last December.
The 29-year-old dad, who died without knowing he was to become a father for the second time, suffered more than 80 separate injuries across his body in the shocking violence, that left him looking like the “elephant man”.
Newcastle Crown Court heard Zoe Warren, who had been Mr Shaw’s girlfriend for “just a few days”, confessed to her part in the killing to a new man she was in a relationship with a few weeks later and had boasted about getting away with murder.
The 20-year-old, of Chipchase, Washington, and Mr Shaw’s neighbour Keiran Adey, 19, of Queen Street, Grange Villa, both denied murder during a trial, but were found guilty by a jury.
Warren had admitted being at the scene when Mr Shaw, who she described as her “best friend”, was murdered by Adey, but claimed she played no part in the violence. Adey told jurors he had beaten Mr Shaw, but claimed it was Warren who “lost it” and murdered her new man.
Warren was also convicted of intimidation over a threatening letter she sent to her next boyfriend after he became a prosecution witness.
Mr Justice James Goss QC sentenced both killers to life behind bars and said they each must serve a minimum of 17 years before they can apply for parole. The judge told Warren: “You claimed in evidence to have loved him. If you did, you betrayed that love.
“You are not the victim in this, as you sought to persuade the jury to conclude. You believed you had got away with murder.”
Justice Goss said the murder was “cruel, merciless and a sustained episode of brutality” and that the pair had shown “no remorse”.
Prosecutor Nick Dry told the court Mr Shaw had been subjected to unimaginable violence in the attack
Mr Dry told the court Warren had been living at Mr Shaw’s house and said during one conversation after the killing, Adey told an acquaintance he and Warren had inflicted violence and: “We’ve done what we’ve done and left him looking like the elephant man”.
“Cruel, merciless and a sustained episode of brutality” MR JUSTICE GOSS