A police force has apologised to the family of a woman murdered by her boyfriend after an inquest jury found two major failings by the force contributed to her death.
Susan Nicholson was killed by Robert Trigg in April 2011 - five years after he took the life of his previous partner, Caroline Devlin.
Police failings caused or contributed to the death of Ms Nicholson because 'reasonable measures' were not taken by police to avoid her coming to harm, the inquest jury ruled today.
A jury at Crawley Coroners Court concluded that Sussex Police prematurely closed an investigation into Caroline Devlin's death and this may have contributed to Ms Nicholson's death.
Jurors also found the force should have known about the real and immediate risk to Ms Nicholson and that, by not taking reasonable action, this caused or contributed to her death.
Trigg was jailed in 2017 for the murder of 52-year-old Ms Nicholson, his partner at the time, and the manslaughter of his previous partner Ms Devlin.
Both women were killed at their homes in Worthing, West Sussex, five years apart but both deaths were not regarded as suspicious by police.
Trigg was sentenced to life imprisonment for Ms Nicholson's murder in July 2017 and was also sentenced for the manslaughter of Ms Devlin 11 years earlier in March 2006.
His conviction only came to light after a long-running campaign led by Ms Nicholson's parents, Peter and Elizabeth Skelton, who also pushed for a full inquest to be opened.
At his trial at Lewes Crown Court in 2017, it emerged police had been called to 13 reports of domestic abuse involving Trigg, including five reports with another partner, Susan Holland.
Following the inquest, Assistant Chief Constable Fiona Macpherson of Sussex Police said: "Susan's family and friends have waited a long time to hear all the facts surrounding her death and our thoughts remain with them, and with the family of Caroline, at this difficult time.
"Further to the apology that the former Chief Constable offered to the families in 2017, I apologise for the failings of the force in relation to the deaths of both Caroline Devlin and Susan Nicholson.
"As the coroner noted in her closing remarks, Sussex Police have made extensive changes and improvements in the way in which it responds to cases involving domestic abuse in the ten years since Susan's death.
"Learning from these two cases has been used as part of our work to comprehensively revise our policies during this period.
"We respect the findings of the jury, and we now need to pause to reflect on these before deciding on any further action."
In 2017 Sussex Police commissioned two independent reviews, one of the investigations in 2006 and 2011 and, separately one to review the way the subsequent complaints from Susan's family were handled.
