A DOUBLE-killer who battered his ex-partner with a hammer was handed more than £50,000 of taxpayer’s cash to fight his case.

Anthony Ayres murdered Canvey mum Kelly Pearce, 36, during a sickening assault in Fairlop Avenue, Canvey, in November 2015.

The alcoholic builder denied killing Kelly and stood trial at Chelmsford Crown Court using tens of thousands of pounds in legal aid.

The figure came to light amid anger that relatives of victims in the 1982 Hyde Park IRA bombing were turned down by the Legal Aid Agency as they pursued a civil claim against a suspected bomber.

John Downey, the alleged bomber, was granted £50,000 to fight his criminal case, which collapsed in 2014, the Sun newspaper reported.

Ayres spent a total of £50,746 on top QC Oliver Saxby. The lawyer mounted a robust defence, which involved blaming a mentally ill friend for the knife and hammer attack.

During the trial, he said: “If Anthony Ayres is not the killer then a prime suspect would be the other person in the house - a paranoid schizophrenic. The injuries are horrifying and yet strangely focused on her head and neck.

“These are injuries caused by somebody who has completely lost touch with reality, someone consumed by anger, someone intent on punishing her for what she has said.”

Jurors delivered a unanimous guilty verdict after hearing Ayres had already served an 18-year prison sentence for strangling his girlfriend Dawn Wisdom in 1993.

He went on to murder Kelly by stabbing her in the face and neck more than 40 times and splitting her skull with a hammer. Ayres was found covered in blood and with knife wounds to his hands.

At sentencing, Justice Maura McGowan told Ayres he would never be released.

She said: “Less than three years after you were released from prison you killed Kelly Pearce.

“You took a knife and a hammer to the flat where you knew she was.

“You set about an attack of extraordinary brutality, which in my view amounted to sadism.”

The Sun said readers have donated almost £77,000 to the IRA victims’ case while the LAA has refused to help, claiming it is “not in the public interest”.

Following the trial, Kelly’s mum, Lynn Wallings, said: “Kelly was cowardly and brutally murdered at the hands of Anthony Ayres. On that day my life, and that of her family, was shattered forever.

“Since her death, I find it hard to smile or laugh or live with any sense of happiness. Part of my heart and life was taken too when she died.”

Defence tormented former friend

DETECTIVES, journalists and lawyers alike wondered how a convicted killer, found covered in his latest victim’s blood, would mount a defence.

Most assumed that if he maintained his plea through to the trial he would go for diminished responsibility.

Instead, the case took a bizarre turn when the medical records of the prosecution’s key witness were read out in court.

He turned out to be a paranoid schizophrenic who heard voices telling him he was the Yorkshire Ripper. He had once considered “cutting up” his sister’s cat. He also believed he was being controlled by a satellite. The man was forced to deny “losing it” and killing the mum-of-one because she had taunted him.

In a cold and calculating move, Anthony Ayres used his friend to try and get himself off the hook. Fortunately the jury did not buy it.