The complex question at heart of Ryan Wellings trial

“I used to be murdered.”

These have been the stark phrases Kiena Dawes typed into her cell phone earlier than she took her personal life in July 2022.

In the identical notice, the 23-year-old mother-of-one from Fleetwood in Lancashire described her accomplice Ryan Wellings as a “monster” and a “bully” who had “killed me”.

Wellings was cleared of her manslaughter on Monday however discovered responsible of assaulting her, in addition to controlling and coercive behaviour.

For these offences, the 30-year-old panorama gardener, from close by Bispham, was jailed on Thursday for six years.

On the coronary heart of the trial had been a posh authorized query – can an abuser be held criminally chargeable for the demise of a sufferer who has taken their very own life?

Warning: This text comprises distressing photos and content material

Ms Dawes’ personal phrases from “past the grave”, as lead prosecutor Paul Greaney KC put it in court docket, have been the place to begin for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) when it thought-about charging Wellings with manslaughter.

Detailed notes Ms Dawes wrote on her cellphone outlined two and a half years of bodily and emotional abuse at his fingers.

One described how he smashed up a small shrine she had created to her late father, whereas one other detailed the time he threatened to scar her face with acid.

Wellings’ trial was additionally informed of how, when she informed him she wished to finish their relationship, he pressed the set off on a drill and informed her he would use it to “drill the enamel” out of her mouth.

In different proof, the jury heard police had been referred to as a number of instances to the flat she and Wellings shared in Fleetwood and that within the months earlier than her demise, Ms Dawes informed officers he had “completely leathered” her, strangled her, given her a black eye and tried to drown her within the tub.

On 4 January 2022, she referred to as a confidential helpline run by the home abuse assist charity Refuge.

Notes stored by the charity, which have been learn in court docket, detailed how Wellings had hit her, thrown objects at her and flung her into glass on the ground earlier than pulling her alongside by her hair.

In the beginning of July 2022, Wellings was arrested however he denied intentionally harming Ms Dawes and was launched on bail.

Two weeks later, she drove to her buddy’s home, let herself in and positioned her nine-month-old daughter in the lounge, safely strapped right into a automobile seat.

Whereas her buddy was within the bathe, oblivious to their presence, she left her cell phone subsequent to her child and drove away.

Ms Dawes took her personal life shortly after.

In court docket, Wellings’ defence drew consideration to Ms Dawes’s historical past of psychological sickness, which dated again to her childhood and included her making makes an attempt to take her personal life earlier than she met him.

Traits of her identified emotionally unstable character dysfunction, together with elevated impulsivity, have been additionally cited as a possible reason for her demise.

In legal proceedings, jurors are instructed that they should be happy “past affordable doubt” that an individual is responsible of against the law earlier than they will convict them.

Jurors can’t be requested to clarify why they’ve reached a choice, however the verdicts confirmed that within the case of Wellings, the jury accepted he had bodily and psychologically abused Ms Dawes, however they didn’t discover him to be criminally chargeable for her demise.

Talking exterior court docket after Wellings was convicted on Monday, Angela Dawes stated she hoped “no different younger woman or youngster” must undergo what occurred to her daughter.

She added that his convictions “clearly” demonstrated the “perpetrators of home abuse might be held to account”.

Talking after the trial, a CPS spokeswoman stated the case was “tragic” and prosecutors revered the jury’s determination.

Chief Crown Prosecutor Kate Brown, who leads on home abuse for the CPS, stated the decision of not responsible in respect to the manslaughter cost wouldn’t deter the service from contemplating related prices sooner or later.

“There may be nothing that we’ve got seen that can stop us bringing different instances,” she stated.

“We’re actively wanting on the instances that the police are bringing to us.”

Just one particular person, Nicholas Allen, has ever been jailed for manslaughter over the demise of a accomplice who took their very own life after extended home abuse.

In 2017, Allen admitted killing Justene Reece and was jailed for 10 years.

Sentencing him, Decide Michael Chambers KC stated Allen had made Ms Reece’s life “a dwelling nightmare” and had “clearly triggered” her to kill herself.

Charities supporting the victims of home violence stated the end result of the case had not modified their view in regards to the hyperlink between somebody being abused and them taking their very own life.

Refuge’s head of providers Julia Dwyer stated her charity remained “steadfast” in its place that there was “an simple hyperlink between home abuse and suicide”.

The charity estimated that three girls experiencing home violence kill themselves every week.

It stated 24% of its service customers had contemplated taking their very own life on no less than one event.

Harriet Wistrich, director of the Centre for Girls’s Justice, informed BBC Radio 4 her charity was conscious of a lot of related instances at present into account by the CPS.

She stated she believed the jury within the case “should have struggled with is the truth that Kiena had a pre-existing vulnerability, that she’d tried suicide beforehand”.

She stated that meant it might have tough for jurors to be “positive” the home abuse “was the causal issue”.

Nonetheless, she stated Ms Dawes being weak and liable to self-harm might have made Wellings extra culpable for “pushing her over the sting”.

“We might wish to see the legal courts herald skilled proof, not simply psychiatric proof, however proof which explains how coercive management operates,” she stated.

She stated that would permit the court docket to know “how girls turn out to be completely trapped in these relationships by the online that’s created by the abuser they usually see no different manner out”.