'Evil' woman jailed for 32 years for torturing partner to death

A mother of four, who tortured her partner to death with the help of both her brother and boyfriend, was jailed for life today and told she must serve a minimum term of 32 years.

Clare Nicholls's brother, Simon Nicholls, 24, was told he will serve at least 25 years for his part in the prolonged and agonising killing of vulnerable Andrew Gardner, 35.

A jury at Teesside Crown Court heard two weeks of graphic evidence about how the trio inflicted scores of injuries over months on the helpless Mr Gardner, who was also suffering blood poisoning and possible malnutrition when he died at their home in Chilton, County Durham, in March last year.

Judge Peter Fox, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, said most people who heard the evidence would describe the killing as "sadistic".

Clare Nicholls was the leader, and had a "deeply entrenched personality disorder".

The judge said: "In my judgment this prolonged killing was one of a particularly high degree of seriousness in the whole spectrum of murder."

Nicholls did not react when the minimum term was read out.

The judge said she was a "dreadful example" to her children who witnessed her violence.

Simon Nicholls's part in the killing was "lesser", yet was still "very serious".

Judge Fox added: "Knowing full well what your sister was doing to this man, you repeatedly were the enforcer, stepping in cruelly when he sought to resist or avoid her attacks."

He said Mr Gardner "died a slow and excruciatingly painful death".

"In the weeks prior to his demise on Friday March 13 last year, he was cruelly tortured and subjected to an appalling catalogue of attacks which not only caused him acute pain in so many ways at your hands, but also dreadful humiliation.

"In your sometimes different but sometimes joint ways, you each contributed not only to the breaking of his body, but also his spirit.

"In his final days that he must have spent prone or leaning against a wall, he was deprived of all human dignity."