A woman was so severely battered and left inches from death by "the man of her dreams" that she was unrecognisable to her own daughter.
Helen Procter and her family have released pictures of her horrific injuries to raise awareness of Clare's Law - which enables police to disclose information to a victim or potential victim of domestic abuse about their partner's previous offending - and to also reach out to other victims who currently feel trapped.
Hours before the photos were taken her family had no reason to believe her partner of two years, Daniel Burton, had a violent bone in his body, HullLive reports.
When Helen met Burton through friends in October 2018 when she was 40, she thought she'd met the man of her dreams, her daughter Abbie Burnett, who spoke on behalf of her traumatised mum, said.
The mum, from Hull, was said to be thrilled to find a kind, well-spoken and thoughtful man to look after her.
The couple had been dating for more than two years when they decided to grab a drunk shortly after the pubs had reopened last April.
During the walk home, Burton became aggressive and dragged Helen inside, throwing her against the living room wall, kicking her multiple times in the face in a frenzied violent outburst.
The last thing Helen remembers before blacking out is screaming for Burton's elderly mum, who he had been caring for and was upstairs at the time, to help.
Helen and her family have now come forward to share the images of her appalling injuries to help raise awareness.
Abbie said: "The relationship had been a happy one. He seemed really well-spoken and I thought he was going to look after mum.
"It wasn't until Dan was in court we realised he has done this before on record.
"Clare’s Law would have showed us he was known to do this. If we’d known, we could have prevented this."
She continued: "When I went into the hospital to see for myself I walked in and said, ‘that’s not my mum’. If I hadn’t known it was her, I’d have thought I was in the wrong room.
"Her toes were the only way I could recognise her as we’ve all got distinctively long toes in our family. The police said that in 15 years it’s the worst case they’d seen."
After battering Helen within inches of her life, Burton watched TV and hid her phone so she couldn't call for help.
He brought her to the hospital the following day, but told Helen to lie to the doctors about how she got her injuries, Abbie said.
Abbie said: "He made mum say she had been drunk, but nurses kept asking her over and over, ‘did he do this to you?’. Eventually, she said, ‘yeah’.
"I thought I was going to lose her. It was touch and go for a while. For a long time after it was all, I could see when I closed my eyes.
"A psychiatrist who checked her over later said mum will never be the same again. She still needs an operation on her jaw and has teeth missing, so needs dentures. Her vision is still not 100% she does look really different.
"An old school friend she hadn’t seen in years wouldn’t recognise her."
She added: "We want people to know about Clare’s Law and to get help if you are scared.
"After the incident mum said she had already started feeling scared of him a few weeks before. Maybe if she had told us we could have helped her.
"He can’t get away with another incident like this - he’s a monster."
Burton appeared in court on January 4, where he was jailed for seven years for grievous bodily harm.
