THE family of two women shot dead by Tilford dog breeder John Lowe have called for an inquest to fully scrutinise the actions of Surrey Police in the months leading up to the killings.

Jessie Nicholls, a solicitor representing the family of Christine Lee, 66, and her daughter Lucy, 40, who were murdered by Lowe at Keeper’s Cottage Stud in Waverley Lane in February 2014, attended a hearing at Woking Coronor’s Court on January 18 to ask coroner Richard Travers to resume the suspended inquests into their deaths.

The solicitor told the court there are “outstanding matters, real questions and worthwhile purposes” still to be investigated, adding this contravenes Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Key to the family’s plea is Surrey Police’s decision to return shotguns to Lowe just seven months before he used one of the confiscated weapons to kill Christine, his partner, and her daughter Lucy.

Jason Beer, the solicitor representing Surrey Police, dismissed the need for an inquest however, adding “the investigation focuses have been fully met by the totality of the investigations taken to date”.

It comes after an 18-month probe by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) into the violent deaths of Christine and Lucy Lee found, in April last year, that Surrey Police “failed to fully consider and properly assess” information concerning Lowe before returning the firearms to him in July 2013.

Lowe, now 85, was jailed for life in October 2014 for the murders - eight months after shooting the two women dead with a shotgun as they tried to flee his farm house.