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Man jailed for manslaughter over ex-girlfriend's suicide

5 replies

lrb978 · 28/07/2017 22:44

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40758095

In short, Justene Reece committed suicide after being stalked, harassed and intimidated by her ex to such an extent that she could not fight against him any more. Her suicide was linked directly to his continual and sustained harassment of her after she ended the relationship due to domestic abuse. The full details are in the linked story, but include trying to track her down whilst in a women's refuge, trying to contact her 3473 times in 5 1/2 months, breaching a non-molestation order 3 days after it was issued, setting up fake facebook profiles of Justene and making false allegations about Justene on these profiles and claiming he was constantly tracking her movements. He has now been jailed for 10 years for manslaughter as his actions directly lead to her death.

Two thoughts on this. Firstly is, he ignored the police, both the non-molestation order and also when they later warned him off contacting Justene (if he ignored the non-molestation order a serious chat was really going to do a lot Hmm) - why was he not arrested and dealt with at this point, why did it take Justene committing suicide for him to be dealt with?

Secondly, I am so pleased he has finally got a jail sentence for what he has done. Too little, too late, but the utter torture he caused Justene has not gone unpunished. All too often, mental torture is not acknowledged for what it is, thankfully the CPS and the judge (and I assume jury, although not mentioned in the article) have prosecuted, found guilty and jailed the offender. Hopefully it is not the only, but the first of many prosecutions, and Justene's legacy will be that these prosecutions happen at the stalking stage, not afterwards.

OP posts:
yallcrazy · 28/07/2017 22:47

Oh god how horrific. RIP Justene.

How fucking awful it must have been to go that far to get away from him.

lougle · 28/07/2017 23:02

That's just horrific. Doing the maths, he must have contacted her at least once per hour, every single day over that 5 1/2 months, assuming a 4 hour break for sleep each night. If there was a longer break for sleep, he contacted her more than that.

lrb978 · 29/07/2017 15:13

@lougle

I hadn't done the maths beyond working out it was roughly 6-700 times a month. Seeing it like that really brings home just how persistent he was.

OP posts:
prh47bridge · 29/07/2017 15:53

I assume jury

He pleaded guilty so no jury involved.

annandale · 29/07/2017 16:00

God. Those numbers are horrific.

What struck me as well was that he had a long history of violent and coercive behaviour towards women. I'm not sure if he had previous convictions. Why not? I would have thought any previous convictions would have meant a faster response to further allegations?

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