Kelly Anne Bates: Left world at 17!!

A mother whose teenage daughter was tortured to death by her sadistic lover has spoken for the first time of her heartbreak.

Margaret Bates, from Mottram, Tameside, said she is still unable to read the autopsy report detailing the 150 injuries her 17-year-old daughter Kelly-Anne suffered at the hands of her violent lover James Smith.

Too traumatised to speak about her only daughter's death until now, Mrs Bates, 60, said she is consumed by one thought - that she wished she had killed Smith when she first met him. 

Over three barbaric weeks, Smith burnt Kelly-Anne with an iron, scalded her with boiling water and even gouged out her eyes.

Smith also tied her to a radiator by her hair, broke her arm and knees and stabbed her all over her body with knives, forks and scissors, causing 150 separate injuries before beating her with a shower head and drowning her in the bath.

Throughout the horrific onslaught, the terrified teenager was alive, begging for mercy.

Smith, who was then 49, got life imprisonment and must serve a minimum of 25 years for his horrific crimes.

Next year marks the 20th anniversary of Kelly-Anne's death, but Mrs Bates said even with the passage of time, she and her husband Tommy, 66, are unable to read the post-mortem report which details the injuries their daughter endured.

Sadistic killer James Smith

In the weeks before her death, Kelly-Anne endured unimaginable torture while her family - terrified of pushing her even further into Smith’s clutches - waited by the phone.

'In April, I got a Mother's Day card from Kelly in Smith's handwriting and I'd had enough,' she said.

'But I was torn; I didn't want to keep going round there because I thought it was making things worse.

'It haunts me to think if we had gone round there she would be alive today.'

Mrs Bates said she contacted the police domestic violence unit and was encouraged to give her daughter its leaflets. Tragically, Mrs Bates was never to see Kelly-Anne again and said she still has the leaflets to this day.

On April 16, 1996, Mrs Bates said police arrived to tell them that Kelly-Anne was dead. 

Kelly-Anne had been starved and had lost more than three stone in weight.

Kelly-Anne gets to grips with crutches after injuring herself as a teenager

Maybe she could have lived longer, but such are women: packed with tolerance and honesty!!

#Satyam_Bruyat