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A judge called the brutal murder of a mum "one of the worst cases of domestic violence" the court has seen as he jailed her ex-boyfriend for at least 24 years.

Joe Storey, 27, bludgeoned mum-of-two Kerri McAuley, 32, and took a photo of her blood smeared on his face before leaving her to die in her own home.

Ms McAuley suffered horrific injuries in the attack which left her skull "like a mosaic" of bone fragments, a court heard.

Storey had denied her murder but it took a jury just 43 minutes to find him guilty.

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Norwich Crown Court heard that Ms McAuley suffered 19 separate injuries with her whole face caved in by a centimetre, her jaw broken, fractures to both eye sockets, her nasal bone protruding from her face and evidence of strangulation.

A tie was found wrapped around her neck following the "brutal and sustained attack" at her home in Norwich, Norfolk.

Her body was found by her mother and brother, as Storey had locked the door and left her to die.

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He did not raise the alarm and instead drank, took cocaine and watched violent pornography, the court was told.

Judge Stephen Holt, jailing Storey for life with a minimum term of 24 years, said it was "one of the worst cases of domestic violence" the court had seen.

He told Storey: "You preyed on a warm-hearted and kind woman."

Storey and Ms McAuley had been in a relationship for eight weeks before the violence began, and each time she tried to leave him he "plagued her and pestered her" with texts to keep the relationship going.

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Judge Holt said: "She was posting pictures of her injured face on Facebook for all to see but you pressed your way back into her life. It's a deeply sad feature of this case."

Storey, formerly of Murrells Court, Norwich, nodded to the judge as the sentence was read out, and there was a shout of "bye" from the public gallery.

In a victim personal statement read to the court, Ms McAuley's mother Lesley said: "I can't imagine the fear and pain that my daughter endured that night at the hands of that monster, the man who claimed to love her."

She described her daughter as a "sociable, fun-loving girl with a heart of gold", and that she was a doting mother to her two sons from a previous relationship."

Her sons were at another address with their father when she was killed.

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Her mother added: "I can imagine them now had that door been unlocked, walking in and shouting 'mummy' as they always did and being confronted by that scene of absolute horror."

There were sobs from the public gallery as the statement was read out.

The bearded defendant, who wore a black T-shirt and had tattoos on his arms and neck, showed no reaction.

Ms McAuley was found dead at her flat in Southalls Way, Norwich, on January 8 this year.

Simon Spence, prosecuting, said Storey had a "history of violence" towards her and a restraining order had been made in October 2016.

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On the night of the murder, the pair went bowling and out for dinner before drinking in pubs in Norwich. They were spotted arguing before returning to her flat.

Mr Spence told the jury that the attack was "no ordinary domestic assault in the course of an argument".

Following one brutal attack in 2016, Kerri shared pictures of her bruised face on Facebook and wrote: "My ex, who claims he loves me, beat and suffocated me until I almost passed out. It has left me with a broken cheek and a broken heart."

Storey had also been made subject to restraining orders in respect of four other former partners, and had been convicted for violence, including punching a pregnant ex-girlfriend in the stomach.

Related video - Horrifying footage of domestic violence that victim wants you to see

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Ms McAuley, a supermarket worker, was killed just weeks after she described feeling "stronger than ever" having left him following an 18-month on-off relationship.

It's understood the pair had split in November 2016, shortly after they returned from a romantic break to Rome.

During the two-week trial pathologist Ben Smith described Kerri's skull as "almost a mosaic of small fractured pieces of bone".

Andrew Oliver, mitigating, said the murder of Ms McAuley was not premeditated and that Storey had admitted manslaughter before he was found guilty of murder.