Until I Kill You: Who was Paula Fields? What happened to John Sweeney's victim

ITV's true crime drama 'Until I Kill You' follows the real life of Delia Balmer, who was in a relationship with Liverpool-born killer John Sweeney and survived the trauma he put her through. Now in his 60s, Sweeney is currently serving life in prison for murdering his former girlfriends, cutting their bodies into pieces and dumping them in canals.

He got the nickname of "scalp hunter" based on the drawings he made depicting his crimes. When police finally tracked him down after six years on the run they found creepy paintings which included clues to his killings, the ECHO previously reported.

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One of Sweeney's victims was Paula Fields, she was a 31-year-old mum from Halewood. In 1998, Paula relocated from Liverpool to London, Paula was addicted to crack cocaine and her two children were taken into care. At the time she met Sweeney, she was working on the streets of London as a sex worker. He was living in London under an assumed name.

After their first encounter, the pair struck up a relationship in December 2000. Paula's dismembered remains were found two months later in the Regent's Canal. Paula's body had been cut up into 10 pieces and dumped into the canal in a number of holdalls. Paula's feet were missing from the body parts found in the water.

The ECHO previously reported on the 'anguish' the family of Halewood's Paula Fields have experienced. In a statement released by the Metropolitan Police, the family said: “In 1990 Paula came to London for a while to stay with family and then returned to Liverpool.

"During this time she was not taking any drugs. Paula came back to London in 1999 with her sons, a few months later during 2000, some family members noticed changes to Paula's lifestyle."

The statement continued: "Then in December 2000 Paula went missing. Paula had only been in London for 14 months. During that time she had become involved in taking drugs and prostitution. We and the rest of Paula's family want the public to know that this time in 1999 to 2000 was a very small part of her life that led to her demise.

“For 29 years Paula was a normal girl, a loving mother, daughter, sister and aunt. God has given us strength and courage to bear and to fight this awful blow."

Talking about Sweeney, they said: "We hope to God that John Sweeney will never be released, for him to do to another person what he did to Paula. To put another family through the stress of a trial then to listen to what they have done to their loved one’s body would be intolerable."

Before meeting Paula, Sweeney had already killed a decade earlier. After moving to London in the mid-eighties, Sweeney met Melissa Halstead - a 33-year-old American model turned photographer. She was deported from the UK in 1988, but Sweeney followed his then-girlfriend to Vienna and Amsterdam.

In 1990 her remains were fished out of the Westersingel canal near Rotterdam. Horrified divers found a woman's torso dumped in the canal, with the head and hands missing.

In the years between his brutal killings, Sweeney attempted to murder Delia Balmer. She survived the horrific ordeal and has inspired the ITV drama 'Until I Kill You'.