A killer who kicked his pregnant ex-fiancee and their unborn child to death should have been charged for an attack on her two months earlier, prosecutors admitted yesterday.
Alcoholic Tony McLernon, 24, lured Eystna Blunnie to her horrific end with a text saying ‘Got a surprise for you, hope you like it’.
The jobless computer game addict, high on cannabis, then forced the mum-to-be to the ground where he repeatedly stamped on her head and kicked her.
Eystna, 20, a catering student, suffered massive facial and head injuries in the murder on a housing estate in Harlow, Essex.
Her unborn daughter Rose – who was due just three days later – was also killed in the savage onslaught in June 2012.
McLernon had been arrested two months before the attack for strangling Eystna – but the Crown Prosecution Service failed to recommend he be charged.
Grace Ononiwu, chief crown prosecutor for the East of England, said the “rational decision” would have been “to authorise a charge” based on the CPS domestic violence policy.
She said: “For this failure to authorise a charge in relation to the April 2012 incident, I have unreservedly apologised to Mr and Mrs Blunnie in person and in writing for the distress caused by this decision.”
McLernon was convicted of murder and child destruction and jailed for life in March and told he must serve at least 27 years before being eligible for parole.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how he drank more than 20 litres of cider mixed with Lambrini a day and was ‘obsessed’ with the Guitar Hero game.
