Many domestic abuse victims are driven to suicide – the law must change    

KIENA DAWES took her own life after suffering two-and-half years of hideous abuse at the hands of ex-partner Ryan Wellings.

Aged just 23, Kiena — who had a nine-month-old baby with Wellings — left a suicide note reading: “I was murdered. Ryan Wellings killed me. He ruined every bit of strength I had left. I didn’t deserve it.”

This week a jury found the landscape gardener guilty of assault and controlling and coercive behaviour.

However, Wellings, 30, was cleared of manslaughter.

Wellings was the first defendant to be tried before a jury accused of the unlawful killing of a partner after taking her own life following domestic violence.

Figures show those driven to suicide by partners now outnumber victims killed by their tormentors.

In England and Wales, 93 people are suspected to have taken their own lives between April 2022 and March 2023 after being abused.

While 80 people were killed by a current or former partner.

I believe these figures, while shocking, are unreliable. It is only something we have become more aware of recently.

Anecdotally and from organisations that support bereaved families, my sense is suicide is three to five times more common than homicide following domestic abuse.

And I think research will eventually establish just how frequent.

The actions of the Lancashire police officers, who investigated Wellings, were terrible.

They failed to charge him and he was bailed. It was during his bail period that he continued to terrorise Kiena, a hairdresser, from Fleetwood.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct found found one officer had a case to answer for gross misconduct and two officers for misconduct relating to actions or omissions connected to Kiena’s reports of domestic abuse.

Difference between life and death

It is quite right that those officers are being held to account.

Sadly, again and again, we see situations like these in domestic violence cases.

When women like Kiena are screaming for help the police just aren’t using all their powers to provide the intervention that is needed

Harriet

When women like Kiena are screaming for help the police just aren’t using all their powers to provide the intervention that is needed.

If they did, it can be the difference between life and death.

At Centre for Women’s Justice we are working with a number of such cases and it is important that the justice system continues to prosecute with the full force of the law.

The question in Kiena’s case is whether the jury fully understood how Wellings’ behaviour affected her.

The legal test is whether that behaviour was a significant cause of her action.

Perhaps the jury felt they could not convict him for manslaughter, because they believed Kiena would have taken her own life anyway.

Coercive and controlling behaviour is said to be a bespoke form of abuse.

What that means is the abuser hones in on the vulnerabilities of the victim and that seems to be very much what Wellings did.

He was aware Kiena had mental health problems.

There seems to have been evidence of Wellings gaslighting Kiena and using her mental health history to push her to the edge.

It should not be possible for a perpetrator to be found less culpable because the victim happens to also be vulnerable.

Jurors need help in understanding how a victim can become so trapped in an abusive relationship that they cannot see a way out.

In a way, it makes the perpetrator more culpable.

If a bully picks on a child who is really vulnerable it is a similar scenario, isn’t it?

They target the weak or those who appear weak and vulnerable, and isolate them from support.

Then they really go hell for leather with the abuse.

I believe, that is what happened to Kiena.

With coercive control, the victim feels trapped in the relationship

Harriet

What we see with a lot of domestic abuse trials is jurors thinking, “Well, if she didn’t like it, she didn’t have to be in that relationship, she could have left.”

What they may not know is, in such cases, the point a victim decides to leave is often the most dangerous — and that is when many homicides take place.

With coercive control, the victim feels trapped in the relationship.

They cannot see a way out.

I believe Kiena was being isolated and when she sought help from the police they failed her.

She then decided there was no other option than suicide.

Justice wasn’t delivered

I represented Sally Challen, who successfully appealed her murder conviction for killing her controlling husband Richard in 2010.

At the time of her conviction, controlling and coercive behaviour was not a crime in England and Wales.

Sally ended up killing her abuser and then planned to take her own life.

She saw no alternative.

And that is what can happen when you are subject to that level of control — you just cannot see any other option.

Kiena’s family and campaigners really wanted her case to establish a strong precedent that would help other women in a similar situation.

They feel that justice was not delivered.

But the family’s courage in speaking out means they have helped raise awareness about domestic abuse as a potential cause of suicide.

And that can help contribute to changes in the law and practice that are needed.