DOMESTIC VIOLENCE – A ‘bubbly’ mum-of-three who was stabbed to death by her partner had called 999 ‘screaming’ days before her murder, an inquest has heard.
Danielle Richardson, 24, died after she was knifed by her boyfriend Michael Marler, then aged 37, multiple times in a drug-fuelled rage at an apartment in Ancoats, Manchester, in February 2018.
He Admitted one but Denied the Other
Marler, who admitted stabbing Danielle but denied her murder, was later found guilty of murder at trial and sentenced to 21 years behind bars at Manchester Crown Court, back in August 2018.
Almost six years after her death, an inquest at Manchester Coroner’s Court has now heard evidence surrounding Danielle’s previous contact with Greater Manchester Police, including in the days leading up to her death.
The jury also heard evidence from Danielle’s family members, who submitted statements about the nature of her and Michael’s relationship, which they called ‘abusive’ and ‘controlling’, and told how she would ‘go quiet’ and ‘become a recluse’ in the periods she was with him.
She was Stabbed All Over
Danielle, who was stabbed by Marler, including to her face, neck and also 11 times to her back, was found dead in the Shush apartments, Swan Street, on the morning of February 13. The pair had booked two nights there while renovation work was ongoing at Danielle’s house.
Marler Tried to Flee
Police later recovered her body after Marler had jumped from the window of the flat and went on a violent rampage across Ancoats, damaging cars and attacking people.
The Harrowing 999 Call
The jury was played a 999 call that Danielle made on February 8, five days before she was murdered. In it, she was ‘screaming’ and saying: ‘Let me out” and “why are you punching me?’
After the call was cut off, a handler then rang Danielle back but she denied calling the police and said she was ‘getting ready for work’.
Once the call had been reviewed, Alan Hayes, a PCSO with Greater Manchester Police at the time, was tasked with visiting the address the call was made from, on Mortar Street in Oldham, and performing a welfare check.
The inquest was told that Hayes had ‘no training in attending domestic abuse calls’ as he was not a police officer. However, he told jurors that at the time, he had not been given the full details on the log and was only told he was following up an ‘abandoned 999 call’.
‘Because it had come from my sergeant, I thought it would have been deemed appropriate for a PSCO to attend,” he said.
Mr Hayes Returned
The inquest heard he called at the address shortly after 4pm that day but nobody answered the door. At around 9.30am the following day, February 9, Mr Hayes returned but there was no answer again.
At 11.26am, when visiting the address once more, Mr Hayes eventually spoke to Danielle. She apologised and told him her children had been playing with her phone when the 999 call was made.
‘I asked if I could come in but she said she was getting ready to go out. She said it was children playing on her phone, and she apologised sincerely. There were children’s toys on the stairs behind her, so I had no reason to believe there were not any children there,’ he told jurors.
‘Danielle was calm; not stressed in any way; no signs she had been crying. I could see her arms and her neck and there were no bruises or marks on her.’
The 999 Call was Then Reviewed
However, after the 999 call was reviewed again, officers decided the log should be reopened with a further welfare check required as it was ‘not the voice of a child’ but a ‘woman in distress’, and could have related to a potential domestic violence incident.
Police constable Anthony Johnson and colleague Daniel Knight, who was training at the time, attended later that evening, February 9. They spent two minutes and 20 seconds at the address, with bodycam footage played out to court.
The officers spoke to Danielle in the living room at the flat, with Marler also present and sitting on the sofa. The footage showed her informing them she had already been spoken to earlier that day by PCSO Hayes.
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‘He Could not Recall’
PC Johnson, who had received domestic abuse training, said there were no concerns for Danielle’s welfare following the visit. He said he knew the log had been reopened but he ‘could not recall’ whether he had received information on the logs about the nature of the 999 call prior to the welfare check.
He also said in evidence that it was not always common practice to read the logs when carrying out a welfare check, but that he could have done or radioed for further details.
‘There was nothing at the scene that indicated there was a domestic assault incident or that there was any requirement to follow up after the visit,’ he said.
More Domestic Abuse Revealed
On Monday (January 22), jurors in the inquest also heard about a number of other instances in which Marler had been violent and abusive towards Danielle.
Reading evidence from the previous criminal trial, senior coroner Andrew Bridgman detailed one episode in August 2016, in which Marler kept Danielle prisoner in her flat for three days.
He prevented her from leaving, ripped up her clothes and urinated on them, and also poured hot tea on the bed and made her lie on it.
There were a number of other incidents where she was left with black eyes and bruising at the hands of Marler since they first met in 2015.
