Coroner says failures contributed to Stephen Cole’s killing of Marta Elena Vento at a Bournemouth hotel

The family of a woman killed by a man with psychosis have said she “paid with her life for lapses in the English prison and policing system” after a coroner said failures by prison and police authorities contributed to the killing.

In a damning verdict, the senior coroner for Dorset, Rachael Griffin, said Marta Elena Vento, 27, a Spanish national, was unlawfully killed by Stephen Cole in December 2020 while she was working as receptionist a Travelodge hotel in Bournemouth.