Five family members get life for killing

Young mother Rachel Hudson was murdered by her in-laws who showed "a total disregard for human life", her family said last night. Her father Barry Manger branded the Hudsons "evil" after watching five members of the "family from hell" given life sentences.

Rachel's father-in-law, Ronald Hudson, 49, and his wife Trudi, 44, were beginning 20-year jail terms for their part in the murder of the mother-of -two, whose "spirit and body were broken" by a catalogue of abuse.

Craig Hudson, 21, who Rachel married in 2003, was jailed for a minimum of 14 years and his brother Ronald Junior for 17 years for their part in the months of cruel beatings and psychological torture at the family's Nottingham home. Elisabeth Hogg, 19, the girlfriend of Craig's brother Shane, was jailed for a minimum of 14 years for murder.

The family held Rachel prisoner before battering her to death in March last year. When she was found, 11 of Rachel's ribs were fractured and her mouth was so badly injured that her bottom lip had become detached. She died of thrombosis caused by a blood clot in her brain.