Police didn’t tell probation about a killer’s threats before he burned mum alive

Police failed to inform probation services about a convicted killer who threatened to rape a woman before he tortured and burned alive a mother-of-two, an inquest has heard.

Stephen Unwin raped Quyen Ngoc Nguyen, 28, on August 15, 2017, before teaming up with William McFall to kill her.

The pair, who met in prison while serving life sentences for separate murders, took her body up a dirt track in Shiney Row, near Sunderland, before setting her car on fire while she was ‘just alive’.

Her burned remains, which had to be identified through dental records, were found face down on the back seat of her Audi A5 by police officers.

Unwin, 40, of Houghton-le-Spring, Sunderland, had been reported to police for threatening to ‘smash in’ a young woman’s jaw before taking it in turns with an accomplice to rape her, a court heard.

He sent the Facebook message on July 2, 2017, just one month before he killed Ms Ngoc Nguyen, originally from Vietnam, and the complainant said they knew Unwin had been in prison.

But the complainant did not want to take matters further.

Another piece of intelligence related to a report that Unwin had allegedly threatened to assault a teenager, the inquest heard.

Since Unwin was released from jail on licence on December 20, 2012 and ahead of Ms Ngoc Nguyen’s murder, Northumbria Police received 26 ‘items of intelligence’ against him.

The inquest heard how McFall, 51, was not known to Northumbria Police prior to the offence.

Senior Corner Derek Winter told the court: ‘As is previously indicated, Unwin appeared on the radar of the police when he was released from prison in February 2012.

‘There appeared to be about 26 items of intelligence recorded about him.’

A report recorded in 2015 also showed that Unwin had been seen by an officer with a diesel can, however it did not appear to have been followed up by police.

He was also found to be in a prohibited area but the breach of licence was not reported to the probation service.

During evidence, DI Edward Small, of Northumbria Police, said there was no record of officers following up suggestions that Unwin had moved house, or passing the information to the probation service.

He told the court how a computer ‘flag’ system which was used to show police officers important information about an individual was introduced by Northumbria Police in 2013.

But it was stopped in 2015 as it took up too much of police officer’s time and was left to individual officers.

DI Small said the system was generating four or five different flags for one incident, while police were coming into ‘pages and pages of these flags’ on a Monday morning.

The inquest heard how a ‘warning’ on the system about Unwin was not updated once the flag system stopped.

DI Small said following Ms Ngoc Nguyen’s murder in August 2017, a new system was put in place so that information won’t be missed.

Unwin and McFall both denied one charge or murder and one count of rape but following a trial, jurors found both men guilty of murder.

The former was also found guilty of raping Ms Ngoc Nguyen, and in April last year, Mr Justice Morris sentenced both men to life behind bars with no provision for them to ever be released.

The inquest continues.