EIGHT years of 'torment' have ended for the family of Lady in the Lake victim Evelyn Lund following her inquest, which recorded an unlawful killing verdict.

Coroner Michael Singleton said he was satisfied that the 52-year-old mother-of-three had sustained a fatal injury as a result of an assault, after hearing evidence by French and British police.

He also branded the current inquest system as "entrenched in the 19th Century," for forcing the family to go through a procedure that would have been unnecessary if her husband had been prose-cuted in an English court.

Evelyn and her second husband Robert Lund left their Winter Hill home and emigrated to France in 1997.

The body of Rawtenstall-born Evelyn was found in her submerged Toyota Landcruiser at the bottom of Lac de la Bancalie in the Tarn region on October 13, 2002. She had disappeared after visiting friends on December 29, 1999.

Her 55-year-old husband maintained she had not returned to their farmhouse in La Veaute, but police found her glasses and handbag at the property and bloodstains on the Toyota's seats. Experts said the car had been pushed into the water as it was in neutral and the window was down.

Lund, a former Blackburn Council tree protection officer, previously of Anyon Street, Darwen, was cleared of murder by a French jury in October, but found guilty of involuntary homicide. He is serving a 12-year sentence but planning an appeal.

After a full police report read out by Det Supt Steve Brunskill, who has been working on the case since 2000, Mr Singleton recorded a verdict of unlawful killing.

He said: "The family have endured eight years of torment commencing from Evelyn's disappearance, to the discovery of her body, to the investigation by police that lead to a criminal trial in France and now here to an inquest in Blackburn.

"I was anxious to conclude this matter before the end of the year and before that eight year anniversary in the hope the family may now have some form of closure."