Colette Law, 26, from Greenock, was found dead inside a tent in church grounds in Spalding, Lincolnshire - her partner Paul Neilson, was found guilty of assault and preventing her body being found
10:48, 21 Dec 2025
The heartbroken mum of a woman who was found dead in a churchyard has blasted the justice system for granting parole to her ex-partner.
Colette Law, 26, from Greenock, Scotland, was found dead inside a tent in the grounds of St Mary and St Nicolas Church in Spalding, Lincolnshire, on July 17, 2023.
Her body had laid undiscovered for a week and the exact cause of death was not able to be established following a delayed post-mortem.
Her partner Paul Neilson, 30, was initially charged with the 26-year-old’s murder but the charge was dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service, the Daily Record reports.
He was found guilty of assaulting Colette and preventing her body from being found, and was jailed for four years and eight months in January 2024.
Neilson also lied about Colette’s whereabouts, persistently telling people she had gone back to Scotland, but later admitted knowing that she had died in that tent. He deliberately failed to alert any authorities.
Colette’s mum Patricia slammed the decision to release Neilson from prison early after he was spotted in his hometown of Kilmarnock. She told the Record: “I’ve been made aware that Neilson has been visiting Kilmarnock where he’s originally from. That means he’s an hour away from where me and our family live.
"The parole board contacted us earlier this year. I told them he better not be allowed anywhere near us."
“I’ve been in contact with them again this week to raise concerns but have been told as long as he’s complying with the conditions set out by the parole board when he was released, there’s nothing anyone can do if he decides to visit Ayrshire. And in 2028, he’ll be free to go wherever he likes.
“It’s an insult that he served less than two years of a four-year eight-month sentence. He should be suffering for what he did to my girl but instead, it feels like I’m the one serving a jail sentence.”
Patricia warned that Neilson had also changed his name on social media to Paul Moxley. She added: "He gets to start a new life and my daughter is dead. They were together for three years and I begged her to leave him but she wouldn't listen. She said he loved her."
Patricia claims she reported Neilson to police on various occasions when she saw him “shouting in Colette’s face and in a rage”. Neilson was sentenced to one charge of assault by beating, two charges of actual bodily harm, and one charge of perverting the course of justice.
Patricia last saw her daughter three months before her body was discovered. Police visited the family home in Greenock the day after she last spoke to Colette.
She said she and husband John, 67, and Colette’s two sisters, will never get over her death. She said: “I’ve hardly slept for two years; my health has gone downhill and I just can’t move on. The whole thing sickens me.
“Colette was my best friend. We did so much together and I miss everything about her."
“If I can save just one lassie from his clutches, I'll be happy. It’s coming up for another Christmas without Colette and I can’t put up a tree. It feels like there’s nothing in life worth celebrating any more.”
Detective Inspector Adrian Czajkowski from Lincolnshire Police led the investigation into Colette’s death and previously said: “As we quickly and thoroughly progressed our investigation, we started to uncover a pattern of assault. He was a domestic abuse perpetrator, very simply.
“We found that he had assaulted her in the days before her death, as well as perverted the course of justice, and new charges were filed.
“This discovery was largely down to the tremendous response by members of the community who came forward with their accounts of witnessing altercations, as well as other intelligence - for that, we want to say a very big thank you.
“Without their input, we would never have been able to find any level of justice for Colette and her family. And now I must pay tribute to them. They have handled what is the worst thing a family can handle, with dignity and strength.
“Nothing we or the court system can ever do can bring Colette back, but we can see that the person who brought misery towards the end of her life, and who prevented us and her family from truly understanding what happened led to her death, responsible for his actions. I hope that they can now grieve in peace.”