Tara Newborn’s family are furious her boyfriend Duane Ballin (pictured) has only been charged with GBH and not her murder
A family has been left devastated after their daughter’s boyfriend wasn’t charged with murdering her, despite inflicting 37 horrific injuries on her before she died.
Tara Newbold, 29, was found dead at her home in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire on October 25 2016.
She was discovered with injuries to her face, breasts, abdomen, buttocks, wrists, back and hips, as well as seven broken ribs, a punctured left lung and a bleeding mouth.
But a post mortem examination concluded she died of cocaine toxicity – not her catalogue of injuries.
Her boyfriend Duane Ballin, 35, who lived with her at the time, claims she attacked him with a vodka bottle and a rolling pin after finding out he had cheated on her.
He says he struck her in self defence, accepting he caused ‘virtually all her injuries’ before turning up at at Nottingham’s Bridwell police station saying ‘I think I killed my girlfriend’.
Yesterday at Nottingham Crown Court he was convicted of grievous bodily harm and was warned he faces years in jail.
But Ms Newborn’s parents Julie and Peter Dury have slammed both Ballin’s sentence and the results of the post mortem, telling The Guardian: ‘Tara was against drugs’.
They told the newspaper Ms Newborn suffered routine abuse at the hands of Ballin and they ‘never liked him’.
The 29-year-old mother-of-three (pictured) was found dead at her home in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire on October 25 2016. She had 37 horrific injuries but a post mortem ruled she died of cocaine toxicity
After they moved in together in 2012 they claim they carried out several interventions to get her to leave him.
They fought both the post mortem result and complained to Nottingham Police, but to no avail.
Tensions spilled over outside the courtroom as her and Ballin’s family clashed after the verdict.
The shocking scenes were quickly brought under control by police officers and court security.
Prosecutor Jonathon Dee told the jury at Ballin’s trial she had injuries from the top of her scalp to her toes after she was savagely assaulted after a row.
Ballin, 35, now of Woolsington Close, Strelley, Nottingham claimed his partner had attacked him after she found out he cheated on her.
And he had claimed she smashed a vodka bottle on his foot and repeatedly tried to come at him with a rolling pin.
Ballin took the utensil off her in the kitchen – then she punched him to the top of his nose.
He said to the jury: ‘I felt blood go down the back of my throat. I panicked because I couldn’t see.
Pictured: Floral tributes were laid outside Ms Newborn’s home in Nottingham after she was found dead there in 2016
‘I wafted my hand with the rolling pin until she got off me. She was trying to attack me at the time.’
He accepted he fractured her ribs by hitting her with the rolling pin and causing ‘virtually’ most her injuries.
But he denied causing GBH with intent, only pleading guilty to the lesser charge of causing grievous bodily harm.
After the attack, they sat on the sofa talking, he claimed, and she told him she was having a panic attack, so he typed in ‘sore throat’ and ‘panic attack’ on the internet search engine.
‘After I did the search she said to me she was going to be fine,’ said Ballin.
He went to sleep next to Ms Newbold on the sofa and when he woke her lips were blue and she was really cold.
‘At first it was a shock,’ he said.
‘I was just asking her to wake up and shouting ‘Tara’, ‘Tara’, and then I tried to perform CPR; open her airways and pump the chest for a while.’
Later that morning he went to police, calling emergency services on the way.
He said to a detention officer at Nottingham’s Bridwell custody suite: ‘I think I killed my girlfriend.’
Ballin told the court he had seen bruising to his partner’s legs and had thought she might have bled internally.
He told the court how he felt about what happened to her, saying he had not ‘grieved yet because of the situation’ and ‘I feel sick’ and ‘I just don’t feel like I can forgive myself’.
Asked by his barrister, Rupert Jones: ‘Do you regret what you did?’ He replied: ‘One hundred percent.’
Judge Gregory Dickinson QC adjourned sentencing until Monday and remanded him in custody.
He said ‘a lengthy prison sentence is inevitable’ and ‘it is the nature of the type of prison sentence I need to consider’. The crime falls into the worst category.
A domestic homicide review is set to take place at the local authority Rushcliffe Borough Council, which Ms Newborn’s family hope will give them answers.
Commenting on the family’s concerns, A CPS spokesman told the Guardian: ‘We considered all of the evidence provided by the police and made a charging decision in accordance with the evidential test contained in the Code for Crown Prosecutors.
‘The defendant was charged with an offence where the CPS was satisfied there was a realistic prospect of conviction.’
Nottinghamshire police added: ‘Tackling domestic abuse is one of our top priorities. To ensure that our actions are appropriate we are able to launch formal reviews into our processes, which we have done in this case.
‘We follow where the evidence takes us to ensure offenders are brought to justice. All lines of enquiry were conducted in this case.’