Gracie Spinks coroners inquest

Derbyshire Times

16/11/2023

Gracie Spinks, Chesterfield Coroner's Court inquest

Transcript

00:00 So my name's Sajad Chowdhury, I'm from Harewood Law. I am part of the legal team for the Spinks

00:15 family, for Richard, for Alison, for Tom, for Abby. Also part of the legal team is Narita

00:22 Barakasi and Rachel Friarby who have stood behind me. They're from 33 Chancery Lane.

00:29 Both myself and the family are grateful to them for being meticulous and diligent throughout.

00:35 We the legal team, us three, would like to thank the family for being dignified and composed

00:40 in some really difficult circumstances. The next part of the statement that's going to

00:45 be read is on behalf of the family, this is their perspective.

00:51 Gracie was the life and soul of our family. She would light any room with her smile. A

00:56 laughter she would go around with good soul. She was popular and loved by everyone in the

01:02 family and had many, many friends. She had an abundance of energy for life and had so

01:08 many dreams. She loved horses and spent endless hours with her horses. Since the morning of

01:14 the 18th of June 2021, time has stood still. Every day since she's been remembered by us

01:23 and even after two years, the pain and sorrow is real. Our hearts are broken.

01:29 Gracie's room is as it was left on the morning by her. Nobody has the emotional strength

01:35 to move one single thing. People say time heals. It doesn't feel that way.

01:43 Life feels surreal and constant heartache is ever present.

01:50 In relation to Derbyshire Constabulary, the police officers involved in Gracie's case

01:56 drove a coach and horses through the concept of basic policing and common sense, ignoring

02:03 the obvious risks, investigating absolutely nothing and recording absolutely nothing.

02:10 They seemed to be in a rush to conclude their incompetent investigations.

02:15 There was multiple officers who failed Gracie and missed endless red flags.

02:21 When attending the inquest, we saw officers on the constabulary passing the blame back and forth.

02:28 Officers who dealt with the original case failed to show any remorse, humility. Their evidence

02:34 was disingenuous and on occasion bordering on the absurd. This part was very upsetting

02:41 for a family in grief. Some officers went further, having given absurd evidence.

02:47 They then suggested that so many of their senior colleagues at Derbyshire Constabulary

02:53 agreed on how they investigated and concluded matters.

02:58 If this is the prevailing culture at Derbyshire Constabulary,

03:02 then this is not a handful of bad apples, but the entire rotten orchard.

03:10 Gracie's life may have come to an end, but her legacy will live on.

03:15 We as a family will continue to keep the spotlight on stalking.

03:19 We will campaign with heavy hearts for every police force to have a consistent and focused

03:25 approach to stalking. We believe that specialist trained officers,

03:31 and the coroner has just now suggested he's of the same opinion, should only deal with

03:37 offences of stalking. We do not want a postcode lottery dictating service anymore.

03:43 Victims deserve a consistent response. It should not depend on where they live.

03:48 We would like to thank our family and friends. Most of them are here, but there are some that

04:00 are not here. All of them have been a real tower of strength in absolutely tragic

04:07 circumstances. They've attended court, they've attended hearings, they've attended meetings,

04:12 they've made sure our time has been occupied, and they've been there, and that's a real,

04:18 very grateful to them. They gave us the courage to continue living in such dark circumstances.

04:28 We'd like to say a big thank you to Chesterfield's coroner, Matthew Cooley,

04:35 and all his team, including Victoria, the coroner's co-op, and Grace, who assisted us

04:40 and accommodated us throughout. Finally, we would like to thank the jury for being focused

04:46 and considerate. The jury took notes, they listened, they asked the right questions,

04:51 they paid attention throughout, and this was really appreciated by the family.

04:57 I'm now going to ask Narita Barakasi to speak.

05:01 [Narita Barakasi]

05:06 The conclusion of this inquest is another step in a long journey for the family of Gracie Sphinx,

05:14 who seek answers and change in policing to ensure that such a tragedy never occurs again.

05:21 Throughout, the family have acted with dignity and grace. This inquest has uncovered a litany

05:30 of accepted police failings. Derbyshire Police seek to reassure the public by saying that lessons

05:37 have been learned, but the family are concerned that there is still a significant way to go.

05:43 Just this morning, the coroner heard evidence from Detective Superintendent of Derbyshire

05:50 Constabulary, who conceded this, "He was not 100% sure that we have got the culture correct

05:58 within Derbyshire Police at this time." A report to prevent future deaths will now be forthcoming.

06:05 Now invite Richard Sphinx.

06:10 Hello everybody, my name is Richard Sphinx, very proud father of Gracie. Gracie was our daughter,

06:22 the light of our lives. She was the gel that kept us all together. We've missed her every day since

06:29 she went and we'll continue to remember her every second, every minute, every hour for as long as we

06:34 live. Derbyshire Police let Gracie down. They let the family down, they let themselves down,

06:41 and we hope they do not let anybody else down. They do need to change how they operate from top

06:48 to bottom. We'd like to thank our legal team who've worked so hard over the last two years,

06:55 our solicitor Sajid Chowdhury of Harewood Law, Narita Bara Casey, Rachel Ferrari of 33 Chancellery

07:02 Lane. We'd like to also thank all our friends, family and the great people of Chesterfield and

07:08 beyond that have helped us and guided us and given us so much support. They've been absolutely

07:14 amazing and I can't thank them enough. I'd like to thank the coroner as well and all his staff.

07:21 Thank you. Richard, can I ask what's your reaction to your lawful killing?

07:27 You've had to sit through three weeks of distressing evidence.

07:39 I'm not caught that killing is exactly what it is. That's what the jury said.

07:44 Did you hope for more?

07:45 I'm not sure.

07:49 No, don't worry people.

07:53 It's difficult to comment because I'm still shaking about the whole thing.

07:59 Try to process it, yeah. And obviously going forward, you know, you said,

08:05 Tim has said that you had to kind of push forward to make sure that change happens for stalking

08:10 victims. What would you like to see happen? I would like to see all of the police forces

08:16 in the country adopt what one or two have done already and have proper, qualified, trained

08:23 stalking coordinators and advocates dealing with reports of stalking that are going to be reported,

08:30 logged and investigated. Somewhere where young girls, men and women can go to and feel like

08:38 they're going to be listened to and the police are going to do something about it, not just

08:42 shelve it, log it and forget about it. The failings from Derbyshire Constabulary contributed to the death of Gracie.

08:47 What do you think?

08:48 Richard and the family's opinion is that their failings did, however, we respected the decision

08:56 of the jury and the court. So you're of the belief that the Derbyshire police's failings did contribute

09:03 to the death of Gracie's family? Yes. Do you feel like they've learned enough from what you've heard

09:10 in court today to prevent a repeat of this happening again? No. And that must be shocking for you?

09:16 No, they need to pull their socks up and get on with the job they should have done for Gracie.

09:21 But that must be shocking for you, hearing that this morning? Absolutely, yes. What we need to all understand

09:27 is this. Richard and Alison never expected for the police to comply with some high threshold

09:35 of policing. What they expected was basic policing standards. You can't have basic policing standards

09:42 when not one single officer took any notes, not one single officer kept any of the body cam footage.

09:48 When asked about their training logs, they had no passported training logs. In fact, nobody knew

09:53 what training anybody had had. The one thing that they did keep suggesting was that the gold standard

09:59 for them was the PPU unit. One of the officers gave evidence, said that she'd been there three months

10:04 and had no training whatsoever. And then she got a case load after the second three months

10:11 and she still had had no training. So this constabulary, unfortunately,

10:17 needs to take a good hard look at their processes and start afresh. In fact, if the

10:22 new Home Secretary, Jane Cleverley, can speak to Rachel Swan, who's the Chief Superintendent here,

10:28 I think they need to have a word and decide how they move forward with this particularly failed constabulary.

Gracie Spinks coroners inquest

Category

Transcript

Recommended