An “overbearing and pushy” man accused of murdering his ex-lover in a frenzied knife attack had taken control of her life, her daughter told a court yesterday.

Sabrina Williams said she took an instant dislike to Keith Prest after he met her mother Louise Evans through a text dating service.

Mrs Williams, 28, said her mother was at first smitten with Prest, declaring: “I am going to put Velcro on his feet so he can’t escape.”

But Maidstone Crown Court heard that Prest became violent to three-times-married Miss Evans and stalked her after she eventually left him and started a new relationship.

Prest, 49, is alleged to have stabbed the 48-year-old victim 43 times as she walked to her car East Sutton Park open prison, where the worked.

Miss Evans, who was living in Hothfield, near Ashford, having grown up in Ramsgate, met Prest in September 2005. They had a whirlwind romance and moved in together within two weeks.

“He sought to control her, he sought to dominate her,” prosecutor Alan Kent. “When he couldn’t get his own way, or if she did something he disapproved of, he would assault her.”

After they parted, Prest made numerous telephone calls to her and left notes on her car and at her home. At the time of the attack on September 12 last year, he was on bail, accused of assaulting her.

Mrs Williams, who has a sister Laura, 25, said she did not like the texts Prest sent her mother, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, when they met.

“They just seemed overbearing and pushy,” she said. “She seemed keen to meet him. I had reservations. She seemed excited and pleased.

“I first met him around Christmas 2005. I didn’t want to meet. I didn’t like the sound of him. She brought him round.

“I felt he had taken control of her. My mum was normally relaxed around me and she didn’t seem to be. She seemed rather edgy. She wasn’t a normal mum.

“There were a number of occasions when they split up and got back together again.”

Mrs Williams said she and her sister went shopping with their mother a few days before she was killed. While at a supermarket, Prest left notes on Miss Evans’s car windscreen.

“She said she handed them to the police,” she said. “That was the last time I saw my mum.”

Prest, of no fixed address, denies murder.

The trial continues.