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Cleveland Police and PA Wire
UK News

Daughters speak out after churchgoer's killer is jailed

Forty-six-year-old Lynne Freeman from Redcar died on 23 March after being attacked by 34-year-old Alan Bennett from Lingholme in Redcar.

On the same night, he went on to murder his ex-partner 30-year-old Jodie Betteridge (pictured below) in the town, stabbing her 132 times, some of which was witnessed by her three young children.

Cleveland Police/PA Wire

Speaking after Mr Bennett was sentenced to at least 32 years and 233 in prison, Ms Freeman's daughter Kimberley Freedman said her mother "will live on in every person whose heart she touched."

In a statement, another of her children, Sarah Freeman, described clearing up the bungalow where her mother was murdered was "the most disturbing and traumatic situation I have been in."

Cleveland Police/PA Wire

Sentencing Mr Bennett (pictured above) at Teesside Crown Court to two life sentences, Judge Simon Bourne-Arton disregarded Mr Bennett's claim he had made a "monumental mistake", saying "there was no mistake about it, it was quite deliberate by you."

Ms Freeman was a volunteer with Redcar Beacons, a Christian initiative trying to help revellers at bars and nightclubs on the High Street stay safe.

Speaking just after her death, her family described her as "thriving in life" an "loved the volunteer work that she did in her church".

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