A jury found Ryan Wellings guilty of assaulting his girlfriend Kiena Dawes but not criminally responsible for her suicide. Dawes documented years of physical and emotional abuse before taking her own life in July 2022. This case raises complex legal questions about holding abusers accountable for a victim's death by suicide.
Those were the stark words Kiena Dawes typed into her mobile phone before she took her own life in July 2022.
Wellings' trial was also told of how, when she told him she wanted to end their relationship, he pressed the trigger on a drill and told her he would use it to "drill the teeth" out of her mouth.Ryan Wellings told jurors "I am not a monster" when questioned about Kiena Dawes' death At the start of July 2022, Wellings was arrested but he denied deliberately harming Ms Dawes and was released on bail.
In criminal proceedings, jurors are instructed that they must be satisfied "beyond reasonable doubt" that a person is guilty of a crime before they can convict them. Chief Crown Prosecutor Kate Brown, who leads on domestic abuse for the CPS, said the verdict of not guilty in respect to the manslaughter charge would not deter the service from considering similar charges in the future."We are actively looking at the cases that the police are bringing to us."
Refuge's head of services Julia Dwyer said her charity remained "steadfast" in its position that there was "an undeniable link between domestic abuse and suicide".It said 24% of its service users had contemplated taking their own life on at least one occasion.
DOMESTIC ABUSE SUICIDE MANSLLAUGHTER LEGAL CASE ABUSER RESPONSIBILITY
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