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Original poster

Susan Nicholson case - heartbreaking

326 replies

HeatedCatFurniture · 28/08/2017 21:35

I've read bits about this before but this article sets it all out in detail.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/28/the-police-knew-another-girl-had-died-in-his-bed-robert-trigg-susan-nicholson

It's appalling. Those poor women, those poor families - and that elderly couple, spending years and £££ bashing their heads against a brick wall of indifference from the police.

And so many of the officers named in the article are women, too.

OP posts:
DancingLedge · 28/08/2017 21:41

It is truly appalling.
I hope this article gets lots of publicity: there is so much there about attitudes to violence towards women. I thought we'd moved on from ' just a domestic' attitude by the police.
Horrific.
And below it ,in the Guardian, other articles about murdered women. So many. Makes me wonder how many more are not even properly investigated.

Ereshkigal · 28/08/2017 21:42

Yes. I think a massive systemic failure.

annandale · 28/08/2017 21:44

That's absolutely horrifying.

I wish I understood more about how this could possibly happen. All the reinvestigations - what were they looking at? What does an IPCC investigation actually cover?

enoughisenough12 · 28/08/2017 21:53

I hope that the police are held to account for their 'wilful' refusal to consider that she was murdered. It defies belief that there were so many flawed 'investigations. The parents should not have had to spend all their money to get this properly resolved. They need so much credit for their persistence.
Truly shocking..

QueenLaBeefah · 28/08/2017 22:04

If it hadn't been for her parents that monster would still be at large and he absolutely would have done it again.

The Sussex police force should be utterly ashamed of themselves.

Lauralou69 · 28/08/2017 22:12

Absolutely dusgusting, it almost defies belief but why should it, women being abused and murdered by men is so sodding prevalent!

powershowerforanhour · 28/08/2017 22:40

Well done her parents for having the strength and tenacity to keep going. They have saved another woman from being murdered because he'd done it twice and got away with it- there is no way he would have not done it again.

Shoxfordian · 29/08/2017 06:52

Awful story but sadly not surprising given all the other stories I've read of the police not understanding domestic abuse properly. Any officers involved should be sacked

OnlyHereForTheFeminists · 29/08/2017 08:43

That is shocking. The other thing I don't understand is why he only got a caution for the previous attack which put his girlfriend in hospital for THREE WEEKS Shock

Rodhullstvaerial · 29/08/2017 12:05

From the article....
Two days later, the pathologist, Simon Poole, conducted a postmortem and his findings confirmed it: the cause of death was likely to have been a mix of accidental smothering and the effects of intoxication

The pathologist stated that. Not the police. The pathologist. Guess who carries the most weight in the coroner's court?

How many of you have investigated/attended the scene of a sudden death, given you all seem to be experts in procedural short comings?

DancingLedge · 29/08/2017 22:22
Hmm
DancingLedge · 29/08/2017 22:44

Ok Rod , it may be uncomfortable for you, as police, to read these criticisms, but there's a hugely bigger issue here than was it the police or the pathologist who was more to blame.
Susan's parents, without any investigative knowledge, were able to spot a huge hole in the ' official' line: the sofa on which she was supposed to have been accidentally suffocated, was too small for two adults to lie on.
Another huge question, how did the police not have an awareness that he had been involved in the death of a previous partner? Just how was that possible?

I think we have, sadly ,to ask ourselves, was this death investigated thoroughly enough? Did the circumstances of domestic violence towards a female partner not warrant the most serious investigation? Or was it somehow a " lesser crime" , not as serious as a stranger attack?

Rodhullstvaerial · 30/08/2017 04:50

Another huge question, how did the police not have an awareness that he had been involved in the death of a previous partner? Just how was that possible?

The previous partner who the pathologist determined died of an aneurysm? How with the information available to them at the time were police to suspect any involvement?

it may be uncomfortable for you, as police, to read these criticisms, but there's a hugely bigger issue here than was it the police or the pathologist who was more to blame.
I'm fine with criticism. It's when it's from people who have absolutely no idea whatsoever, that it massively fucking grates. Especially when those same people decide to politicise her death to desperately try and make a point which is wholly untrue.

All the experts on here should really join up. Their local special constabulary will be crying out for numbers. Please join and show us how it's done.

JigglyTuff · 30/08/2017 05:07

When lay people can see a clearly obvious pattern of behaviour a, but the police can't, then you have a problem.

I hope the review throws some light on what appears to be systemic failures fuelled by misogyny at an organisational level.

BertramTheWalrus · 30/08/2017 05:30

The police did a pathetic job in both cases, but so did the coroner. How did he not see that the first victim had received a blow to her head? That indicates he wasn't doing his job properly.

sashh · 30/08/2017 05:59

There are a lot of lazy police.

There are a lot of police who make judgments about people based on sex, race, where they live, family.

If you are on the wrong side of it there is not much you can do.

When you are the victim of harassment but the harasser reports you, in my experience, the judgement I mentioned above is the deciding factor for the police.

If you complain they investigate themselves and find nothing wrong.

If you don't have money there is nothing you can do, even if they are threatening to arrest you for a crime that hasn't happened.

annandale · 30/08/2017 06:17

I do e what you mean Rob. It's just so bloody depressing.

The question then arises how a pathologist determines that smothering has been accidental. I'm assuming that there must be physiological signs that suggest this but I worder how reliable they are, since in this case they were misleading.

kittybiscuits · 30/08/2017 06:19

I suppose your attitude probably reflects a similar one to that shown by the police in response to the murdered woman's parents' concerns, RodHull. There is palpable disinterest in violence towards women from the police force. There is a culture - I have experienced it myself - of active disinterest in the matter. It must be horrendous for those officers who do care. But this is an endemic cultural problem. The poor parents. And the children. How badly let down the victims were.

kittybiscuits · 30/08/2017 06:20

YY - it is a misogyny issue.

Oblomov17 · 30/08/2017 06:37

I don't think it defies belief at all. I think it goes on quite a lot. Investigations that do very little and just uphold the previous decisions.

Because to admit otherwise means more work and further cost. The system encourages this, to just trot along with previous decisions.

My sympathy is with them. But I'm not at all surprised. I am surprised that so many of you are.

There are many big famous cases where such failings occur. Hillsborough is one. Mistakes were made. Big ones. There were cover ups. Even now, the investigating officers have retired in pensions and it was decided that they couldn't be challenged anymore.

But mistakes, cover ups etc, happen a lot on a much smaller scale. On small cases. Such as this.

All sounds perfectly logical. I can see how it all happens. How hard it is to disprove.

It's very tiring.
I can't see the system ever changing.

Gunpowder · 30/08/2017 06:52

But Rod Cary the subsequent forensic pathologist said that:

^''… accidental airway obstruction must be the least likely possibility in this case. In terms of the proposed positions on the sofa, this is not a matter of expert evidence but as a matter of common sense...''^

I think given this ^^ and that police knew Trigg had a past record of domestic violence AND that he had had a partner who died in similar circumstances, it is shocking he wasn't arrested at the time.

Of course the initial coroner made a huge mistake, but it wasn't like Trigg was charged and then charges dismissed because of the coroners report, he was never even arrested!

I don't know enough to comment on policing in general except knowing we need to fund it more Sad but I think it's clear that on this occasion Sussex Police made huge failings.

BrandNewHouse · 30/08/2017 07:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Rodhullstvaerial · 30/08/2017 08:28

When lay people can see a clearly obvious pattern of behaviour a, but the police can't, then you have a problem

It's very easy to see a pattern with hind sight. Again I'll ask what would you have done differently?

kittybiscuits · 30/08/2017 08:35

Looked at the most basic history of a DV perpetrator at the time when his second girlfriend died in suspicious circumstances.

SweetGrapes · 30/08/2017 08:38

You know what Rod, it massively fucking grates when yet another woman is murdered by people who are supposed to be her near and dear ones and the authorities turn a blind eye/have a pathetic response/resort to platituded... take your pick.
Makes me furious and reminds me of growing up in India where there was a dowry death a day in the papers. Here it's a partner death a week now.

I still remember the slogan from them - 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if the law doesn't stop you, we women must'. Seems equally pertinent in 2017 Britain as it was/is in India.