A MAN who had been charged with murdering Greenock woman Colette Law and leaving her body undiscovered within a tent in an English churchyard for a full week was yesterday cleared of killing her - because an exact cause of death could not be established.

Paul Neilson - who 'delayed' police in finding Colette after persistently lying that she had travelled back to Scotland - was instead convicted of multiple assaults on her and of trying to pervert the course of justice.

Colette's body was found within the grounds of St Mary and St Nicholas Church in Spalding, Lincolnshire, on July 17 last year - seven days after Neilson inflicted his final attacks on her.

Prosecutor James Varley told Lincolnshire Crown Court: "On the night of July 10 and morning of July 11, Colette Law, just 26, tragically lost her life.

"It is a sad feature of the case that they, [her parents, Patricia and John] will never definitively know the cause of death of their daughter.

"The reason for that is the evidence available to the police and latterly the pathologist was insufficient to establish the cause of death.

"The only reason for that delay was this defendant's persistent course of lying."

Colette's boyfriend Neilson, 30, of Spalding, was initially charged with murder and manslaughter but those charges were dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service.

He pleaded guilty to doing an act tended or intended to pervert the course of public justice between July 10 and July 18 last year.

Neilson also admitted to beating Colette on July 8, and two charges of inflicting actually bodily harm on her on July 10.

Prosecutor Mr Varley said: "It was a chance find, paramedics were looking for someone else, when they came upon the tent in which she died and remained.

"The state of Colette Law was such that the pathologists could not do the job they wanted to do.

"Although she had a bleed on the brain, it could not be determined if that was the cause of her death."

Greenock Telegraph:

The court heard Nielson and Colette had been a couple for around three years and became familiar faces in Spalding after they moved down from Scotland and pitched a tent in the churchyard.

A CCTV trawl by police in Spalding uncovered three assaults by Neilson on Colette, who seen in one piece of footage to be clutching her side and withy one of her arms bleeding.

Prosecutor Mr Varley said it was likely that Neilson realised that Ms Law had banged her head, and subsequently he said that Colette had suffered a fit after returning to the tent on the night of July 10.

He added: "The obvious inference is she died that night. She was never to leave the tent.

"But the defendant went to a friend's house.

"People were told she had gone back to Scotland. They were no doubt happy she was no longer with Mr Neilson."

As Colette lay dead, neilson went to a job centre to collect benefits money on July 11, the court was told.

He even texted Colette's mum asking her to send him £30, a request that was refused.

Neilson also admitted that he had pushed Colette and she'd hit her head but then passed it off as a joke and insisted she had returned to Scotland.

Following his eventual arrest he said: "I never did anything."

Mr Varley said: "She [Colette] had already been dead for ten days."

A post mortem showed Ms Law had suffered two bleeds on the brain, with one believed to be more historic in time.

In a moving victim impact statement, Colette's mum said: "She didn't deserve to die and certainly not in the way she did.

"I feel like I have lost a limb."

She described Colette as having an 'infectious smile' and said all her daughter wanted was a house and family.

Patricia added: "Colette has left us lots of memories, every corner we turn she is there."

In a statement from Neilson, read out by his lawyer John McNally, he said: "I just want to say sorry for how things have turned out. I can't imagine how you, the family, feel."

Passing sentence Judge Catarina Sjolin Knight told Neilson his actions had hindered the police investigation into Colette Law's death and caused 'avoidable anguish' for her family.

Greenock Telegraph: Colette's body was found within a tent in a churchyard.

The judge made it clear she was not sentencing Neilson for causing Ms Law's death, but said he had not demonstrated remorse, adding: "How and when she died is not so easy to state, and that is down to your actions.

"I cannot be sure she hit her head.

"You feared you were responsible for her death. 

"You came up with a tale you maintained for over a week."

Neilson has been jailed for four consecutive years for perverting public justice and eight months for the assaults on Colette.

The judge praised the 'quiet dignity' of Colette's family.