'How is that justice?': Daughter of woman beaten to death by her builder deplores his sentence

ITV News Reporter Pablo Taylor sat down with Rhian Brown, who has remembered her 'giving, caring' mother in the wake of Peter Norgrove's sentencing

The daughter of a woman beaten to death by her builder while he worked in her home has told ITV News she feels as though the justice system "isn't there for anyone" after the killer was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Peter Norgrove admitted to the murder of 58-year-old Sharon Gordon, who he left for dead after inflicting severe skull fractures with a hammer in July last year in Holly Hall, Dudley.

Doorbell footage shows Norgrove entering the property and leaving again, packing his car up moments after killing Ms Gordon.

The recently qualified bricklayer, who met Ms Gordon through a mutual friend at the Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall they attended, was paid £29,000 and agreed to build the extension within two months.

Rhian Brown, Ms Gordon's daughter, has said the manner of her death and the sentence handed to her killer has made it impossible to remember the better times with her mother.

“The way that she died and her last moments it’s so hard, it’s hard to think of, it’s hard to imagine. He knew what he was going to do when he went into that house," she said.

"And he knew, my mom didn’t know but he knew that she didn’t have a chance."

Rhian added that "it doesn't make sense" that Norgrove was given a minimum term of 15 years.

“I don’t know what this man thinks or believes but it’s not the same thing as my mother.

"When he comes out he’ll be younger than my mom was when he killed her to live his life with his family.

"How is that justice?

'I just know I walked out of there on that day feeling like justice hadn't been served'

“It doesn’t make sense to me. I mean it just doesn’t give you any sort of confidence or make you feel that the legal and justice system is there for you or for anyone.”

Passing sentence on Wednesday, January 31, Judge Chambers said the “brutal and savage” offence, involving eight blows to the head, was aggravated by a false statement Norgrove gave police saying his victim was alive and well when he left the property.

The judge told Norgrove, a former public sector worker: “You used a hammer to repeatedly strike her to the head.

“You were angry because she had continued to criticise you for your chronic delays and workmanship.”

The “rights and wrongs” of the extension over-run, which was more than a year behind schedule, were not matters for the court to determine, the judge said.

He added: “They do not provide you with any excuse, justification or mitigation for what you did.”

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