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00:00Oh, my God, I've had an idea.
00:15Like, sorry, I know you're in a shower.
00:19I think I should make a documentary about all of this.
00:23What do you think?
00:24Call it bail.
00:30Please welcome your host, Caroline Flack.
00:34One of Britain's most successful and most loved presenters.
00:41Love Island, Strictly, X Factor.
00:44Without a doubt, Caroline had star quality.
00:47Every time you put Caroline Flack in the newsletters, they sold.
00:50You don't imagine your daughter's going to be so successful
00:53and you just sit back and watch an amazement, really.
00:56She was top of her game.
00:57Caroline!
01:00Wow, a BAFTA.
01:01Caroline had an ability to talk to contestants.
01:06It's the best job in the world.
01:09The press were obsessed with her.
01:12She dated both Harry Styles and Prince Harry.
01:15Her love life was just intoxicating.
01:19She was the golden girl who delivered for so many years.
01:21The former Love Island presenter has denied charges of assaulting her boyfriend, Lewis Burton.
01:35We saw the tide turn on her.
01:38An editor rang me up.
01:39He said, listen, if she's not willing to talk to you, go and fuck her over.
01:42The media coverage was shocking.
01:45Bastard's head right in.
01:46The place was a bloodbath.
01:48It was like a horror movie.
01:50Caroline Flack, who's been found dead in her London flat, she took her own life.
02:03I was standing with her body and somebody was calling me to fact check that she was dead.
02:09It was so disgusting.
02:13People seem to think that committing suicide absolves you of every horrible thing you've ever done in your life.
02:19It doesn't.
02:20Basically, she was guilty.
02:22She was guilty.
02:22As a mother, I just want justice for my daughter.
02:30People think they know what happened to Caroline, but the reality is much darker.
02:36Questions have been raised about the Crown Prosecution Service charges against her.
02:41In 27 years of practice, I have never seen a case like this.
02:46She was being prosecuted not for what she'd done or not done.
02:50She'd been prosecuted because she was Caroline Flack.
02:52Her phones tell the real story.
02:57I'm going through the shit.
02:59Just really going all over the place.
03:02Today's the cutoff point.
03:04That's what we're waiting for.
03:05What's the cutoff of what?
03:06Find out whether it's going to court or not.
03:10I'm scared.
03:12I've not talked about this before.
03:14Taboids couldn't get enough of it.
03:16People feed off that like vampires.
03:18This was a national scandal on a par with phone hacking.
03:25I would do anything to clear Caroline's name.
03:28I want the truth to come out.
03:30Hello, I'm Caroline Flack.
03:48That was funny.
03:54But it was not going to work.
03:56The real Caroline before this happened was just fun.
04:01How do you invite a snail to a party?
04:03I don't know.
04:07Do you want to come to a party?
04:09When she visited, the atmosphere changed.
04:13Yeah, she had her down times.
04:15But mostly it was good times.
04:20But that's hard to think of that now without feeling really sad.
04:27And what would she be doing now?
04:28Caroline died with the world believing the headlines in the papers that she'd hit her boyfriend with a lamp.
04:50They called her a domestic abuser.
04:52This was a case like any other domestic abuse case, like this thousand a day that the Crown Prosecution Service prosecute.
05:00That was so far from the truth.
05:03I've spent the last five years just trying to get some answers about what happened to her.
05:10I've seen all the police statements, but they're so inconsistent.
05:13One says one thing, one says another.
05:15They don't add up.
05:16I've got the transcripts of the 999 calls and the police videos on the night of the arrest.
05:23And there's so much information the public haven't seen.
05:26Why they pursued the prosecution, I will never understand that.
05:31I would do anything that will help.
05:33I would do anything that would give me answers as to why they did what they did to Carrie.
05:38I want the truth to come out about what happened the night of the incident, what happened at the police station, and what the press have done, and how it all ended with her committing suicide.
05:54Caroline Flack.
05:57Welcome to the hot desk.
05:58I can't even begin.
06:00I'm not going to be able to keep a straight face during this.
06:02This is serious.
06:03Okay, sorry.
06:03Answer the following questions without thinking.
06:06Chocolate or cocktails?
06:07Chocolate.
06:07TV or radio?
06:08TV.
06:09Phone or makeup?
06:10Phone.
06:15These are some of Carrie's phones.
06:18She had a ridiculous amount.
06:20She was so frightened of anyone finding her phone, seeing her phone, phone hacking, that she was continuously changing them.
06:29She always had a phone in her hand.
06:31Everything was on there, and it especially captures the last three months of her life.
06:37Caroline wasn't allowed to speak out after her arrest.
06:44She kept being advised not to say anything, be quiet.
06:47And she wanted to say anything like that, and she's so wanted to have a voice.
06:51So as much as I've dreaded going into Carrie's phones, I think there's some merit in looking at them now, and just getting her own words out there to tell people what she was going through at the time.
07:07It's strange because some are so normal when the day, when she feels good on a day, and then something can happen, and it just goes into, she just goes down.
07:24And just, I can't understand what's happening to her.
07:30I'm just driving back to my mum's.
07:34I'm sorry about yesterday.
07:36I'm going through the shit and time.
07:40I'm just really going all over the place.
07:43My head doesn't know what to think of any place.
07:49Goodie.
07:50Now, this is a story of long, long ago.
07:55Set in a chase at the bird.
07:58She was a one-off out of the four children, really.
08:02She was always a character.
08:03What are you doing, Carrie?
08:05I'm smiling.
08:05She was the funny one as well.
08:08She'd make us laugh.
08:09She liked performing to me and her dad.
08:15Carrie and her twin sister, Jo, they'd never grown apart.
08:19It was always them two against the world.
08:23My oldest daughter, Lizzie, was ten when the twins were born.
08:27When they got up in the night, they'd get in her bed, which was lovely.
08:31Paul being the only boy was the fun aspect.
08:35He'd get all the naughty things, really, with them.
08:41When she died, you realise how quickly your family can change.
08:54I've amazingly not still been able to watch anything that she's done at all.
09:00As soon as I watch her...
09:03the reality hits.
09:11Let's do this.
09:12Let's go to the bench.
09:13Let's tidy it.
09:14There he is.
09:14I come here and you have different moods when you're here, don't you?
09:22That day, I must have felt really not as good.
09:26I just put, um...
09:29Mum, another lonely year has passed, I missed you just as much today as the day you left.
09:37I'm doing my very best to tell the world what some awful people drove you to.
09:43Do you think there will ever be a moment, Mum, when you feel content that you can stop fighting?
09:58I hope I can stop. I hope there will be an end to it. You can't fight for the rest of your life, but you can fight until the truth is out there.
10:09My main anxiety is you're dealing with organisations that are so corrupt and they've got so much money and they've got legal experts.
10:19Can you really get ever to the truth in these organisations?
10:24What's the first thing you think of when you wake up every morning?
10:27Probably the same as me.
10:28I know, yeah.
10:29Do you think the newspapers and the police do?
10:31No, they've forgotten about it, so you know what I mean?
10:34It's not their problem anymore.
10:36I just hope I can achieve something and as long as you lot all, you know, don't mind me doing it, I'll go ahead.
10:49I think Caroline would be pleased with what I'm doing. I wish I'd done it then, before she took her own life.
11:04And that's my biggest regret, that I wasn't shouting like this then.
11:10But now, I've got nothing to lose. The worst thing in the world happened with losing Carrie.
11:19It's like one, take one.
11:24I'm gonna put my glasses there.
11:29Probably for most people they'll think of Caroline, they'll think Love Island, Strictly, X Factor.
11:36But she had been working industriously hard.
11:40Oh, Jesus, it's freezing.
11:42For years before all of that, she hosted Gladiators. A lot of people might remember her on TMI.
11:47Caroline, are you ready to play a law machine?
11:49We surely are.
11:50And if people didn't turn up to go into the competitions, we'd do it.
11:54This one's my mum.
11:57Caroline had an ability to talk to contestants, to really connect with them.
12:03I love my darling, I can see you're really upset.
12:05And come and sit.
12:06Please come and sit here. It's too weird.
12:09I think that's because she cared about them.
12:11That's why they loved her being a presenter on Love Island.
12:15So unfortunately, I'm not here to join the party.
12:18The premise of Love Island, it's finding love.
12:20And Caroline always wanted to find the right person to spend her life with.
12:25You all make such lovely looking couples.
12:27It almost seems a shame to complicate things.
12:30She wanted it to work out for people because she wanted love to work out for her.
12:35And the show just took off.
12:36The most watched program on any channel by viewers under 30.
12:40A cultural phenomenon that's changed the TV landscape.
12:44Wow, a BAFTA.
12:46Yeah.
12:49I got to know Caroline about three years before she was arrested.
12:52I think Louis Walsh actually introduced me to her at one point and said,
12:55Oh, this is Paul Martin, he's a journalist, you know, watch him, watch him.
12:59And straight away, she was like,
13:00Oh, are you one of the nice ones?
13:01Are you one of the nasty ones?
13:02That's pretty nice, I think, hopefully.
13:04And she goes, right, well, then you're okay by me.
13:05Come on in.
13:06And she gave me a big hug.
13:09The tabloids were obsessed with Caroline.
13:10There's no doubt about it.
13:12If you were writing stories about her, you would be making good money.
13:15Her love life as a journalist was just intoxicating.
13:19This is the girl who started out with Prince Harry.
13:23A story like that is the ultimate prize for any journalist.
13:28Which girl do you find she the most, Harry?
13:29Caroline.
13:31And then to go to another Prince of Pop, basically, Harry Styles,
13:34when he started becoming really huge.
13:37Every week, us journos were waiting for that first kiss
13:40and watched their love life play out in front of all of us.
13:43There was an element of hot mess about Caroline.
13:46And as much as, you know, she may have been seen as a commodity
13:48by the people who want to sell papers.
13:51She also saw the press as a great vessel
13:53to move to the next level in her celebrity.
13:56Some of the stories that I worked on, Caroline would have planted it herself.
13:59I still want to see you get together.
14:01Oh, my God, that's never gonna happen.
14:03So you'd ask her, do you have the hots for Ollie?
14:05And it'd be like, oh, you know, you can put in a bit, I didn't tell you but.
14:08We had an insatiable appetite for stories on Caroline.
14:11And she kept delivering. It just never stopped.
14:18Have you got a secret crush on anyone at the minute?
14:21I've got a huge crush on someone at the minute.
14:22Do they know?
14:23No.
14:24Are you gonna tell them?
14:25We message quite a lot but...
14:26Really?
14:27I can't seem to take it from friendship to the next level.
14:29I reckon they know.
14:30Do you reckon?
14:31Yeah, if you're messaging all the time, they totally know.
14:34If you're out there and I'm sending you friendly messages, they mean more.
14:38I remember when Caroline told me she'd met this guy.
14:41She really, really, really was besotted with him.
14:45Can you say Lewis, sorry?
14:48Okay, are we allowed to talk about Lewis?
14:50Yeah?
14:51Yeah.
14:52Okay.
14:53Lewis was a tennis player.
14:56Very good looking.
15:01They were in the early stages of their relationship,
15:04so they'd been going out for about six months.
15:06But they definitely had an emotional connection
15:09and a sexual connection.
15:11I kind of say that because it's Disney.
15:17My God, I am hoping for you, babe.
15:21There was a bit of an age difference.
15:23He was in his late 20s.
15:25She was 40.
15:26Some people thought this is a weird pairing.
15:29From a media point of view, it sucked big time because nobody really knew this guy.
15:37It was like, who?
15:38What's his name again?
15:39He wasn't in the league of any of her ex-boyfriends.
15:42You know, we can't sell a lot of newspapers with that.
15:45But at the same time, I do remember thinking this is a bit of a risk by Caroline
15:51because this is a guy who doesn't have any media training, any experience of fame.
15:57And the problem is Caroline is so big now, you can't learn it as you go.
16:00You can't make any mistakes in the media.
16:02And he had no experience in that field at all.
16:06They had a really nice time together until they didn't.
16:09On the night of the incident, Carrie and Lewis had both been out separately.
16:22They got back, and Carrie said funny enough, and her cabs drew up at the same time, and they came in.
16:33And they'd both had a bit to drink, so she said we were laughing and joking.
16:38And they went up to bed, and she said Lewis fell asleep, but then his phone went.
16:48She picked the phone up, and there were texts from another woman.
16:55Caroline had found out that there were messages from a third party on the phone.
16:58She was upset. She was holding onto the phone.
17:00It was the confirmation of her worst fears.
17:03And she kept it in her hand, and with that, she's trying to wake Lewis up.
17:09She said, I got my phone like this, and I just went, Lewis.
17:12Wake up, wake up.
17:13It's a firm gesture, but the phone's in the hand, and her hands and the phone together are here in her head.
17:18She hit him with a phone, and he kind of stood up.
17:21His head was bleeding.
17:22She was shouting.
17:23He was screaming.
17:24He was, um, frustrated that she'd accessed his telephone.
17:28She was upset at what she'd seen on the phone.
17:30He said, oh, if you keep on, and look, my head's bleeding now, um, I'll phone the police.
17:35And she was screaming, please don't call the police.
17:37If you call the police, I'm done.
17:39And he said, no, he said, you're fucked.
17:42I didn't know if he really meant to do that, but it was a very charged situation, and they were absolutely wasted.
17:50Emergency, we're serving.
18:02The minute that he called the police, she just thought, I am done.
18:06My career's over, my boyfriend's gone, I might as well be dead.
18:09She said to me, I found some broken glass, and I sliced as deep as I could into my wrists, and I wanted to die.
18:18I just wanted it to be over.
18:21The police arrived, and an ambulance arrived.
18:25Everything's captured now on video.
18:27Caroline and Lewis were trying to piece together what actually was happening to them.
18:30Having been asleep, having been intoxicated, and both feeling upset with one another.
18:36It had all taken place so quickly that nobody could really quite work out what was going on.
18:49Caroline was upset and remorseful.
18:52They took Lewis out, and he didn't need anything at all.
19:02They said, it's fine. There was this little mark here.
19:05But they said Caroline would need to go to hospital.
19:08Caroline spent 12 hours in hospital being treated for injuries to her arms.
19:25She'd actually cut them down to the muscle.
19:29They said she would need plastic surgery on her arms.
19:32They then took her to the police station where she was locked in a cell.
19:39The tabloids were aware of what had happened very, very quickly.
19:46They had got a tip-off from a neighbour who had contacted the press.
19:52The press were at Caroline's flat almost immediately after she was arrested.
19:57And that set in turn absolute deluge of phone calls to the local police from press.
20:04You've got Caroline Fleck.
20:05What's she done?
20:06What's the charges?
20:07Is she still being held in custody?
20:09Are you going to charge her?
20:10You're going to charge her, aren't you?
20:12As soon as I heard she'd been arrested, I felt sick.
20:17I was messaging her incessantly and it was, they weren't delivering.
20:22It was like a drum was beating really heavily inside me, but they seized her phone.
20:29I was in Norfolk, but Jodie, her twin sister, had been called to the police station and she called me.
20:35She said, well, I'm here, Mum. I'll take her home. You can come there.
20:39Then a policeman came out and said, it's OK.
20:43The Crown Prosecution Service don't want to charge Carrie.
20:47She'll be out shortly.
20:50The Crown Prosecution Service, they decide whether somebody should be charged with an offence.
20:59As part of my investigation, I've managed to get my hands on the original decision from the Crown Prosecution Service.
21:07Um, and it says, I do not believe that the case is in the public interest to prosecute as the injured party does not support the allegation.
21:17There is no domestic violence history between the parties.
21:20The suspect is 40 years old and has no previous convictions.
21:25The cut to the injured person did not require medical intervention.
21:29Therefore, they just wanted to carry a caution.
21:33A caution is effectively a first warning.
21:36It doesn't require a prosecution or for somebody to go to court.
21:39It's a sanction that's imposed by the police and it's a record of sorts.
21:43But, of course, she would have drawn things to a conclusion there and there and enabled Lewis and Caroline to move on with their lives.
21:50But what had happened is a detective had come on duty and she had overheard other police in the office talking about the case and decided to step in.
22:08To say that she thought Caroline should be charged.
22:15I've experienced domestic violence cases, but all that kept going through my mind was the speed at which this was all happening.
22:38Why not take stock of what's really gone on here and have a complainant that hasn't given a statement, go and talk to him, see how he feels.
22:48Let the dust settle and then let's decide where the best place and route for this should be.
22:55And that's what would ordinarily happen, but it didn't.
22:58And it rapidly became apparent to me that Caroline Flack was being prosecuted not for what happened or what she'd done or not done.
23:06She'd been prosecuted because she was Caroline Flack.
23:11I saw Caroline the day after her arrest and she was staying at her sister's house in London, hiding away.
23:17She was absolutely shattered and actually we sat on the sofa and I remember us both being in complete shock that this was happening.
23:29Oh my gosh, what is going on, girl?
23:38You would think that she is the type to assault a man.
23:44Maybe it's not the first time. Maybe she's an abuser. We don't know.
23:49Within about 10 minutes of the story breaking, we had major national newspaper editors on the phone calling me and anybody else who would have known her saying, come on, we're going to get everything on this girl.
24:02It was all hands on deck. Newspapers were putting teams together, which you do very rarely unless it's something that you would think is going to be big story of the year.
24:12So they've sent teams out to find every cough and spit as they say. We've got to know, will he speak? Is there more pictures? Is her TV career over?
24:21The job I do, there's no rule book and there's definitely no guidance on what to do if your client ends up arrested and being held in a cell overnight.
24:43But we were suddenly answerable to her employers.
24:47Imagine everybody gets very jittery when there's a negative story.
24:52Obviously, she's been charged with a very serious offense.
24:55I think ITV were in a really, really difficult position because she was due to go to South Africa. It was the first Winter Love Island.
25:02Sorry, Winter. You're just not our type.
25:06And I think they made the decision that they had to make.
25:09The television presenter Caroline Flack has said she will stand down as the host of the upcoming series of Love Island.
25:18You can't have the presenter of a romance relationship show who's been accused of domestic abuse and arrested for it.
25:30It's a massive deal both for the show and for the viewers. The new series starts really, really soon.
25:37Caroline did not take the news well at all. You feel you've lost the show you own and it's the beginning of everything crumbling.
25:46Oh, hi there. I wonder if you can help. What I'm after is if I could speak to Sir Mark Rowley, please. The Chief of the Met Police.
25:59I'm afraid you can't ask to speak to the Commissioner. Can I ask who you are?
26:20Yeah, yeah. My name's Chris Flack. My daughter was Caroline Flack. After Carrie's death, I started to look into it more.
26:27Christine Flack has said she believes her daughter was treated differently by the police because she was famous.
26:33Tonight, she accused the CPS and Metropolitan Police of a cover-up.
26:37The police did an investigation, then came back to me and said they found nothing wrong.
26:46I've been trying to get an interview with him for years. Just five minutes, face to face.
26:52I then wrote to the Independent Office for Police Conduct and they did come back and say that the police hadn't investigated properly.
27:04It turns out the police officer that wanted to charge Caroline had applied the wrong criteria when deciding whether she should be charged.
27:12And she didn't keep proper notes as to why she decided to challenge the CPS.
27:17He's refusing to talk to me in any way.
27:20My MP has asked, the mayor's office have asked, but I'm getting nowhere.
27:26Yeah. And, um, yeah.
27:29With the things I've found out and all the wrongdoings, I'm really not happy that they've just dismissed it all now.
27:36The Met did apologise, but only for not taking proper notes.
27:42They will not admit that they were wrong to push for Caroline to be prosecuted.
27:47Because of a police error, my daughter's died.
27:50That's how I see it anyway.
27:52And I think to take a few minutes to talk to me is nothing.
27:57OK. Well, what I'll do is I'll pass you a message on and I'll go flag it to you.
28:00Do you know?
28:02For the last almost five years, I've had the same answer as that lady just gave me.
28:08I just want them to admit that pushing the CPS to charge Caroline was wrong.
28:14And if the police won't speak to me, I'm going to find somebody that will.
28:19I've looked online to see who I could contact that may be able to talk about the Met Police.
28:26And I came across this lady, Jess McDonald, and she'd been in the Met Police.
28:32It says here, during her time with the force, she was posted to the Community Safeguarding Unit,
28:39which deals with, among other crimes, cases of domestic violence.
28:43I can sort of hear her saying these things, because they're the things she was thinking and saying.
28:59The reason she was worried and thought, you know, she may go to prison was because the detective that was working the night had got the CPS to change their ruling and to charge her.
29:11What I'd like to understand is, was Caroline treated the same as everybody else, or was she treated differently?
29:20Hello.
29:21So I've been through all the paperwork in Caroline's case, and there's just so much that shouts out to me as abnormal treatment and mishandling.
29:38This is an email sent by the detective inspector to challenge the decision to caution Caroline.
29:46She writes that the crux of the CPS's argument is that there are sufficient grounds to issue a caution as there is a clear admission of guilt.
29:54Mm-hmm.
29:56But she says, we argue there is not.
29:59However, from reviewing all the evidence, Caroline admits guilt consistently.
30:05She never denies that she hit Lewis with the phone.
30:09Yeah, I've got it here.
30:10She admitted guilt 12 times.
30:13So I don't understand how this is the opening line.
30:17But also, she writes of Caroline.
30:19She has caused a significant injury as such.
30:22This is most certainly not a minor offence.
30:25Well, that's absolute nonsense.
30:27Lewis didn't even receive treatment.
30:29No, no stitches, no glue, nothing.
30:32She appears to be misleading in the way that she's reporting.
30:37I mean, I just can't believe in this email, there's like literally no mention anything about Caroline,
30:42that she had serious injuries and she was very unwell on that evening.
30:47And you can't just strip factors that don't suit your narrative out.
30:52And that kind of brings us to a briefing note that was like an internal document that would be circulated on the night of the incident.
31:02There's multiple mentions.
31:04So here, for instance, likely to be significant media interest as suspect is television presenter Caroline Flack.
31:11The incident is notable as Miss Flack is a recognisable media personality.
31:16So I think the reason that this is plastered all over the briefing note about the media being interested is because with that comes public scrutiny.
31:24The Met were under a lot of pressure because domestic violence wasn't being dealt with correctly.
31:29So I believe they saw this as an opportunity to be like, right, we will show, we will get a charge, we do take domestic violence seriously.
31:38And what I've found out just since, this is the first time that this detective had ever gone against a CPS decision.
31:48And that night, during her shift, she was dealing with a shooting, a high risk missing person, and yet she still had time to get involved in Caroline's case.
32:02Common assault, which is the lowest level of physical assault.
32:08If I was to push you now, that's a common assault.
32:11So the fact that she got involved and appealed for the first time for this common assault is the most damning piece of evidence that Caroline's case was treated differently and very abnormally.
32:24Speaking to someone like Jess, it puts it into perspective that, yeah, I haven't been wrong all this time. Caroline wasn't wrong. Her lawyer wasn't wrong. What they did to Caroline that night was horrendous.
32:43I'm not here to defend domestic violence. I've had family members that have suffered domestic violence, and it's the most awful thing.
32:55And what's even more hurtful, when they've tried to get help, there's been no help out there. The police don't want to know.
33:02Caroline was not a domestic abuser. This was a one-off incident, and Caroline's injuries, which she had done to herself, were much more serious.
33:12I'm doing this because I want to remember what I went through, what my family went through, what my boyfriend went through, what his family went through.
33:34It's three days after I've been arrested for having a fight with my boyfriend. I've always cooperated with the police since they arrived. I was put in a cell. I was promised that I was anonymous and this wouldn't go any further.
33:53I thought it was a really private situation. Five minutes after I left the station, they got into the press, all the details, everything. Since then, I lost my job. The job I've worked all my life on. I'm living in a hotel. I'm receiving so much abuse.
34:21After she'd been arrested, she couldn't go home because the press were just outside her house, hounding everybody, her family, her friends, her house. It wasn't safe for her. So she went and stayed at this hotel, the Ned, because it was private there.
34:40She didn't leave the room apart from occasionally go and have dinner and some friends would come over. But the majority of her time for a while was spent in that hotel room.
35:00I was speaking to her many times a day. I wanted her to leave London and come with me. You know, just come and stay with me, forget everything. But she wasn't listening to anything. She was a woman, you know, she was 40 years old. She wasn't a child.
35:18Her life was being cancelled every day. And if I said, oh, just don't worry about it. You've got this, you've got that. It was not what she wanted to hear. It's a different, different mindset you're in at that time. And it's hard for someone like me to understand that.
35:38It was a fight. Never hurt anyone in my life. The only person I ever hurt is myself.
35:51Innocent until proven guilty doesn't really apply in the world of celebrity. Fathers for Justice created a mugshot of her saying this is what a domestic abuser looks like.
36:03Suddenly, the vultures were sort of picking at the food around her.
36:12Suddenly, Caroline's ex-fiancee crawls out of the woodwork and puts up posts on his Twitter and Instagram pages.
36:20He had put up a non-disclosure agreement that inferred that he'd been through something which Caroline had to hush up as well.
36:27Suddenly this story was developing more claws. It was developing more victims.
36:42Andrew Brady was on The Apprentice and then he went on to Celebrity Big Brother and he was a fun, young guy.
36:50She did like him. They even got engaged.
36:54First thing, congratulations, miss. Thank you.
36:57Can you show your sparkly ring into my camera, please?
36:59It needs to be sizing forever.
37:02But it was very apparent that they were not going to work.
37:06It was not a calm relationship. It was fiery. It was so dramatic. Consistently having to firefight an argument that they'd had and he would threaten to go to the press, which happened all the time.
37:20I've been there for some really horrendous, horrific arguments, but it was never a scary encounter.
37:29She's not scary to anybody, but she's scary to herself.
37:33You'd be more worried that she was going to do something to herself than she was going to physically hurt someone.
37:38And that's why from the first day that after the arrest happened, Lewis immediately said this was a really bad argument gone wrong.
37:47I know he really, really regretted calling the police and he kept asking for the case to be dropped.
37:52And I have to say, in 27 years of practice, I have never seen a case involve a victim asking not to prosecute.
38:08But still, prosecution, in scant cursory short responses, brushed it back and said, we reviewed it and we're proceeding.
38:18The bail conditions when they released Caroline were that she wasn't allowed to speak to Lewis. She couldn't see him. The narrative was she's controlling. She is a danger to Lewis.
38:37So when she's posted, I love you Lewis, she then straight away got a call informing her that message meant she'd broken her bail conditions and we thought she could get arrested.
38:48And that was really scary. I mean, that was horrifically scary.
38:52The view to not allow them to see each other was just compounding the awfulness of the situation.
39:00And it was clearly and evidently going to and did St Caroline into an enormous spiral downwards.
39:08Caroline struggles to be alone. So with this relationship being taken away from her, her mental health at that point was on a serious decline.
39:21Are you two good mates?
39:27Yeah, we're best friends.
39:29Are you? What's the worst thing she does? Go on. Go on.
39:32The worst thing?
39:33Yeah, what's the worst thing?
39:34She doesn't answer her phone.
39:35She's busy.
39:36She's busy.
39:37She worries a lot. If I don't answer my phone, she gets in the car and drives to London.
39:41Yeah, that's great.
39:42Knocks on my door. Why don't you answer your phone?
39:45When I talk about Caroline and her mental health, people say, well, everyone would feel sad if they'd been arrested.
39:51And yes, they would. But she had these problems already.
39:57It started, I mean, even as a small child, she, she had highs and lows.
40:04She could be like so high, but then she could just slump down.
40:10Carrie, why are you crying?
40:12As she got older, it got even worse.
40:16It's when things all culminated, it's like a breakup, not getting a job, different things could come to it.
40:24She had cut her arms before. She, she went through a bit of a spate of cutting her arms.
40:31You don't know why, you don't, I don't think she wanted attention because she had attention.
40:36Whether it's because you hurt yourself, you take a different pain away, I, you know, I don't know.
40:42What do you think she thought of herself?
40:43I don't think she liked herself.
40:48I think she knew her faults. I think she knew when she got down, it was hard for people around her.
40:56As a young girl, she did take pills and ended up in hospital.
41:02It was very, very serious.
41:04One doctor said she had bipolar.
41:07At the time, they used to call it manic depression.
41:11She didn't want to be told that. She didn't want a label.
41:15She hated having this mental health problem.
41:19And, um, it was always hushed up. It was, um, you know, if anyone mentioned it, it was the worst thing you could do.
41:26Hello, everybody.
41:28Oh, tripped up. Good start. I'm just coming out of my dressing room.
41:32The whole way through her career, she suffered with mental health.
41:37Because we're going live in about 45 minutes.
41:39And at those times, if she had, like, her work to go to or something, it would make her come out of it.
41:46Weirdly, the anxiety, I get more when I'm not working.
41:51So, actually, work for me takes away my anxiety, and doing live TV in that moment when you're consumed by something else...
41:57Adrenaline.
41:58It takes away any of my thoughts. It does. It distracts you.
42:01But this time, her job had gone.
42:04And I think that's why we were more frightened of what was going on.
42:08Because we knew what she was like.
42:17It was evident that there should have been a greater mental health assessment,
42:22an impact that a prosecution would have on her mental health.
42:25For that reason, the psychiatrist was instructed in order to prepare a report.
42:31And the decision was made to disclose that to the prosecution.
42:38So, we sent psychiatric report to the CPS to say she is not fit and well mentally to go through this.
42:44We had professional analysis.
42:49And that was ignored.
42:52We were so taken aback, actually, that they dismissed the report from the psychiatrist.
42:59The actual crime that Carrie was charged with in the end was the most minor charge she can get.
43:07But what she was going through, it was just so over the top for what actually happened that night.
43:13The punishment was so disproportionate given the risks to her health.
43:19You're screaming into a void and no one is listening.
43:24So, if that's how we felt as management, how did she feel?
43:27Right, three weeks to go until Love Island returns to our screens with its new winter version in South Africa that host Caroline Flax announced she's standing down.
43:44She was charged with assault and that's the reason why she is standing down.
43:49But what does this mean for the show?
43:51Because she's very much the bigger head...
43:52I've never spoken about this night.
43:55So, it was the night before she was due in court for...
44:00Was it the...
44:01The...
44:02What? The magistrate's hearing?
44:03The magistrate's hearing?
44:04Yeah.
44:05Oh, okay.
44:08So, what, are you going to tell me what happened?
44:10Only if you're comfortable to. I don't want to...
44:11No, it's fine.
44:12I don't want to leave you down anywhere.
44:13No, no, it's just... we've never really spoken about it.
44:18So, it was a couple of nights before Christmas, actually.
44:22Caroline was staying in a hotel.
44:24She called a couple of people slurring and I knew then something was going on.
44:31So, a couple of us went over and she was just completely out of it on the bed.
44:37I got a phone call from Caroline's friends that she had taken something and they didn't know what to do.
44:48She drank the minibar dry. She took whatever tablets were there in the hotel room that had been prescribed to her.
44:56We were just freaking out because the next day was the hearing, but also I was thinking she's going to die.
45:04So, I headed over to the hotel.
45:08We called a doctor.
45:10The doctor came and he said, can you put your fingers down her throat and see if she can vomit any medication?
45:16So, I did and like a few tablets came out.
45:20By this point, we're one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning and she had to be at her magistrate's hearing the next day, quite early as well.
45:29I just remember the counselor, what is she going to wear? Because nothing was clean.
45:34But at the back of your mind, you're thinking, should she be going to the magistrate's hearing?
45:38Because she's obviously really unwell.
45:41I'm a mother. I thought, am I doing the right thing here? But I let somebody do this to my daughter.
45:46I didn't know what was best.
45:49But what I did think was the short-term pain of going is going to be better for her in the long term.
45:54We got a mishmash of clothes together. Some of them maybe have friends' clothes. And we had her ready for the next morning.
46:02It just shouldn't have happened. She shouldn't have gone. You know, that day, you can see her. She probably had an hour's sleep. We didn't sleep. She was see-through.
46:12I arrived with Caroline in the same vehicle at court on that morning in question. We couldn't get out of the vehicle we were traveling in.
46:21I couldn't open the door to the car just to get out as a professional to represent somebody in court.
46:26What had this become?
46:29The press were horrific.
46:32It was so intense. And having that many people scream at you and flash cameras at you, and they don't know this, but six hours after you've nearly died, it was scary for me.
46:50It would have been horrific for her.
46:53She was squeezing my hands so tight and she was really shaking.
46:56But the press was so horrific. They were saying disgusting things like, did you nearly kill your boyfriend? Like, very provocative things.
47:05Caroline kept saying, please don't tell my mom about last night.
47:09I didn't know what happened the night before, but when I saw her, it just didn't even look like Harry. She just looked lost.
47:18Her boyfriend arrived separately. He's previously said he wants the case against Caroline Flack to be dropped.
47:26And doesn't support the prosecution.
47:29We went into the courthouse. She saw her mom. She broke down.
47:33And then her biggest fear, she said, what am I going to do when I see Casey Weiss in that court?
47:39Who was she?
47:41Casey Weiss was the prosecutor.
47:43You know, I'm sure the prosecutor will say she was just doing her job.
47:47And we don't know what information she was being fed by the police.
47:50But with a court packed with press, the nation's eyes were all on Caroline.
47:58She said that Caroline hit her boyfriend with a lamp and caused him a serious or significant injury.
48:05But the one thing that got me was when she quoted one of the police officers who described the room as like a scene from a horror movie.
48:15But she didn't say that that was Caroline's blood, not Lewis's blood.
48:18And that is where I remember thinking, oh my God, this is going to go wrong.
48:25And Caroline turned around and looked at us. Her face was completely pale and white as a ghost.
48:32She was like, she couldn't believe it. Like, she knew in that moment what had been said and that it couldn't be unsaid.
48:39I've done courts in the past and edited newspapers with court reporting, but the information coming out of that courtroom was way more detailed than we were used to as journalists.
48:51This was a magistrate's hearing, not a trial.
48:54These things are invariably to plead guilty or not guilty.
48:59And then the judge writes down on a piece of paper a day for the next hearing.
49:04This is one place you do not mess around if you're a journalist. This is one place where you don't get to be boss.
49:10You can only report in what is said.
49:12Prosecutor Katie Weiss told the court he had been asleep and had been hit in the head with a lamp.
49:18Almost immediately, what was said in court hit the news.
49:22They were both covered in blood.
49:24The prosecution said he'd received a significant injury to his head.
49:27It was like a horror movie.
49:29Social media pick up. It spreads like wildfire.
49:35She picks up a lamp and smashed him over the head while he was asleep.
49:39And there was blood.
49:41The police was a bloodbath.
49:44And Caroline is suddenly the baddie in a horror movie.
49:48She is not allowed to contact her boyfriend, and when she was told that in the court, she burst into tears.
49:55It was all an act. You can see she's trying to look small and weak. Just a clever move to get sympathy.
50:01Never move to get sympathy.
50:31All these journalists, finally, they had something they could actually pick on her about.
50:43Move back! Move back!
50:44This was a true crime in the moment, and people feed off that like vampires.
50:51I think she felt very, very lost and out of control, and I just could see that it was going to end badly.
50:58The more I've looked at this, Christine, the less I can understand.
51:13Caroline thought she had no control. Lies were being told about her all the time.
51:19At this point, Caroline was worth more to them in print to be the villain.
51:23There was no direct evidence that anyone had been hit with a lamp.
51:26It's really just about who's got the best front page the next day.
51:30I think this headline's disgusting.
51:33I'd like a front page apology.
51:37We were more scared of her going to hospital because of what the press would do than getting her life saved.
51:44Life saved.
51:45Life saved.
51:46Life saved.
51:48Life saved.
51:49Life's not only doing music.
51:50Iįžåŗãã figment, but I don't like to-
52:05It's really wild ëŦ´ė?
52:07It's like he leaves us like Heroic USB.
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