- 5 hours ago
murder uk s03e02
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:10I'm David Wilson, Emeritus Professor of Criminology, and for over 30 years I've
00:17investigated the phenomenon of murder and what it is that might motivate someone to kill.
00:27Every murder case is different, but time and again a deadly pattern emerges of warning signs
00:35and red flags. In this new series, I investigate some of the UK's most harrowing murder cases
00:46to understand how and why these terrible crimes occur.
00:55This is Murder UK.
01:19MUSIC PLAYS
01:21Growing up, Katie and I were incredibly close. I think as a young child she was the one left
01:26at home while her bigger sisters went to school. She was the only blonde, blue-eyed one.
01:31She was absolutely spoilt rotten by everybody.
01:35MUSIC PLAYS
01:38Katie was very angelic, very sweet, a lot of fun, very giggly.
01:45Yeah, just a really sweet little girl, baby of family.
01:50Katie and I were very close. Our older sisters were sort of very outgoing,
01:55and we were quite shy and reserved, and that kind of built a bond between us that we would stick
02:00together.
02:01Katie was very shy as a child, but just beautiful. She always had a smile on her face,
02:07and as she grew up and became more confident, she just became the life and soul of the party.
02:15Katie had lots and lots of friends. She was very popular. She was very easy-going, very giggly.
02:21She liked to laugh. She liked to get up to mischief.
02:25Katie left school at 15, and she'd been doing hairdressing on a Saturday as a job,
02:32and just absolutely loved it, so she decided to become a hairdresser,
02:36and won many awards as well. She was a really fantastic hairdresser.
02:50By spring 2015, Katie Wilding, now aged 19, and having done some travelling, returns home from a trip to Australia.
03:00You can appreciate that after four or five months away, moving back in with the old people wasn't really what
03:07she was looking for,
03:08so we managed to find her a nice little flat just off the seafront.
03:12It wasn't a huge flat, so it didn't take a lot of tidying, but I think she enjoyed having her
03:18independence.
03:21Katie had had boyfriends, but no serious relationships. She was enjoying her life too much, I think.
03:30Within just a few weeks of her return, Katie meets someone new, Mitchell Richardson.
03:39Katie told me one day when we met that she had gone for lunch at a sandwich bar with a
03:45friend,
03:45and this guy had come over to her and said that he would really like to get to know her.
03:51Mitchell's first words to Katie were,
03:54I've been watching you.
03:59Katie was very flattered by that at this point.
04:02When she told me about it, I was a little bit concerned.
04:06Not overly concerned, but it did seem a little intense.
04:10Katie was 19, Mitchell was 31 when they met.
04:16She was very excited when she was describing Mitchell.
04:21She said he was tall, he was dark and he was handsome.
04:24It was the old cliché going here, but she was excited.
04:28She said he was a proper man rather than a boy.
04:30That's what I think she felt quite frustrated with chaps of her own age,
04:34so that she felt she was more mature than that.
04:36So she was very excited.
04:40He had a BMW car.
04:42I think at 19 she was a little bit,
04:44oh, this is quite nice to be treated, to be spoiled.
04:47He took her to some very nice restaurants initially.
04:50He bought her a new mobile phone.
04:52He was really spoiling her.
04:54And I don't think that's something she'd had
04:56from previous relationships before.
05:07The first time I met Mitchell was around Katie's flat.
05:10And at first he was very pleasurable,
05:12but he almost tried too hard.
05:15It was quite intense.
05:17And Katie was learning to drive at the time,
05:19so we went out for a drive to a local car park
05:23so she could practise.
05:24And quite quickly I became a little bit uncomfortable
05:27because of the way he spoke to her.
05:29He was very controlling.
05:31He put her down quite a lot about the way she drove.
05:34And I just didn't like his attitude towards her at that point.
05:38And he was already displaying controlling behaviour.
05:44What's interesting is that very early on
05:48we see the move from love bombing Katie
05:51to establishing the elements of coercive control.
05:56Richardson's quite clearly beginning to see
05:59what the boundaries are.
06:00How dependent he can make Katie.
06:03We see that in particular
06:04with the so-called driving lessons in the car park
06:08where he's not really giving her driving lessons,
06:11he's putting her down.
06:13This is a way of belittling her,
06:16of establishing her dependence on him.
06:19A few weeks into the relationship,
06:22Emma visits Katie again,
06:24at the flat the family had helped her find.
06:27I went round to help her build some furniture.
06:30And I realised that throughout the flat
06:32there was a lot of things that weren't hers,
06:34and it was very much in a mess,
06:36which in some ways was very unlike Katie.
06:40And she told me at that point that Mitchell had moved in with her.
06:45Mitchell came to Katie and said that he was being evicted from his home
06:50and asked if he could move in with her just as a short-term measure
06:54until he could find somewhere else to live.
06:58Katie is now living with a man she's known only for a few weeks.
07:02Her family watch with growing apprehension,
07:06feeling that things are moving far too quickly.
07:11We were very concerned.
07:12We didn't know who this man was.
07:14We knew he was a little bit older.
07:16We didn't know anything about his family or his friends.
07:19So, yes, we were quite concerned at this point
07:21that we hadn't actually met him.
07:25His words at the time were he was being evicted from his flat
07:29for not being able to pay the rent,
07:30but we soon found out that there was a lot more to it than that.
07:34When he moved in with her,
07:36Katie found out that he had violence in his past
07:40because he had to tell her that he had a tag on his leg
07:43which was given to him by the courts.
07:46This was for violence against another man
07:48which Mitchell had claimed was in self-defence.
07:53But Katie believed that he'd been misrepresented at court,
07:56that he'd been misunderstood by the judge,
07:58that nobody had listened to him
08:00and she didn't believe him to be violent.
08:02She said she trusted him.
08:11It was a few weeks after they'd been living together
08:13that we saw a change in Katie.
08:17Katie was working at my friend's hair salon
08:19and my friend phoned me and said,
08:21Katie has been coming in in the last few mornings in tears.
08:24She's upset about something.
08:26And this particular day,
08:28about two to three weeks after they'd been living together,
08:31Mitchell walked into the hair salon
08:35and started shouting at Katie in front of everybody.
08:40and he spat at her.
08:43Mitchell threw a set of keys into Katie's face
08:46which caught her here and left.
08:50Katie was absolutely devastated
08:52when my friend, the owner of the salon,
08:55was talking to her and calming her down.
08:57She said that it was entirely her fault
09:00because she'd drank the last of the milk that morning
09:02and hadn't left him any milk for coffee.
09:04And that's why he was angry.
09:09Richardson's very public argument with Katie,
09:13he's not ashamed by that
09:15because it's done very deliberately.
09:17And by doing this deliberately,
09:19a number of psychological advantages accrue to him.
09:24Katie is seen as his property.
09:26But it also serves to humiliate Katie in a public setting.
09:31And that humiliation further serves to
09:35emphasise the power dynamic within the relationship
09:39and her dependency on Richardson.
09:42It's a subtle form of self-blaming.
09:46It's an acceptance that she must be in the wrong
09:49even when she's not.
09:51I was devastated.
09:53This was my baby.
09:55I wanted to challenge Mitchell, but Katie asked me not to.
09:59She said it was OK.
10:00She dealt with it.
10:00He'd apologised.
10:02And they'd moved on.
10:04Katie was signed off work very soon after that
10:06with anxiety and depression.
10:20A few weeks later,
10:22Mitchell and Katie are spotted by her mum's friend Sue
10:26and her husband in Torquay Harbour.
10:31A car pulled into the loading bay and Katie and Mitchell got out of the car.
10:38And they started to walk back towards the bars and the restaurants.
10:45And another car pulled up right behind Mitchell's car and caused his car alarm to start going off.
10:53At which point, he completely lost his temper and started screaming and shouting at the gentleman in the car behind.
11:03And was getting very animated and shouting and screaming at him.
11:08Katie tried to calm him down and then he started shouting at her also.
11:15And he got into the car and sped off.
11:18It was a very shocking incident to see.
11:23And made me feel very uncomfortable and very worried for her.
11:28It was the quickness with which he lost his temper.
11:31Over nothing.
11:32My husband was very shocked by what he saw.
11:35And he said to me that if he was talking to her like this in public,
11:41then what was he talking to her like in private?
11:44How was he treating her behind closed doors?
11:47Sue immediately informed Katie's family about the incident.
11:56This is the point where I started to see the change in my sister.
11:59From being that bubbly, happy, sort of outgoing person to becoming very withdrawn and hiding things from us.
12:08Katie left her job.
12:10She went to the doctors and was signed off with anxiety and depression.
12:13And that started her on a spiral.
12:16Very quickly into the relationship, Mitchell cut her off from her friends.
12:19And I think that was for control.
12:22Katie would tell us that Mitchell was adamant that her friends were trying to split them up.
12:28He would tell her, your friends don't like me.
12:30Your friends are telling lies about me because they don't like us together.
12:35They're jealous of our time.
12:36They're jealous of our love, of our mature relationship.
12:39Slowly but gradually, she lost touch with all of her friends.
12:47Richardson can be seen as following almost a classic playbook of coercive control.
12:55She becomes further isolated.
12:57She's no longer in touch with her family in the way that she once had been.
13:01And this serves to create a dependency even further on Richardson.
13:06She is totally dependent on the person who is actually abusing her.
13:13A year into the relationship, Katie is completely isolated from her friends living alone with an abusive boyfriend.
13:22And now, she's set to lose the home that she and her mother had found together.
13:30Katie was evicted from her flat.
13:35Because Mitchell had started to smash the flat, neighbours were starting to complain to the landlords that there was screaming,
13:43there was shouting coming from the flat.
13:45So, all at the same time, she lost her job, she lost her flat, and she definitely started to withdraw
13:51from us, from her family.
13:54In their increasingly fractious relationship, a worrying new ingredient is spotted in the mix.
14:01I became aware that Mitchell took drugs.
14:04There were drugs all over the house.
14:06He quite openly offered me drugs many, many times.
14:10In fact, he would boast about the drugs that he had in the flat.
14:14And he would often offer them to Katie. Katie would say that she didn't want to take any, but he
14:20would then laugh in her face and just really humiliate her for not wanting to take them.
14:26The drugs made him extremely paranoid.
14:31So, from the beginning of the night, where he would very much be the gracious host, you know, offering drinks,
14:36playing games, and then as soon as the drugs came out, he would become paranoid and angry and try and
14:42control everybody in the room.
14:44He would humiliate Katie, he would call her names, he would spit at her, and all because she didn't want
14:51to take the drugs with him.
14:52The minute the drink, or the drugs, or the combination started, he would become very aggressive, he'd become very paranoid.
14:59He'd check her phone three, four, five times a day.
15:01He would always say, oh, are you wearing that? What's that for? Who are you going to see?
15:06He accused her of sleeping with his friends.
15:08Oh, always. He was paranoid, absolutely paranoid.
15:13With Mitchell's paranoia intensifying, the family fear his control over Katie's every move is becoming absolute.
15:24Mitchell would control her money, he would control what she was allowed to wear, whether she could shave her legs,
15:31whether she could buy new clothes, whether she was allowed to drive her car.
15:36If she stepped out of line, he would do things like cancel her car insurance, or smash her phone so
15:42that she couldn't contact anybody.
15:44And Mitchell insists on knowing his girlfriend's location 24 hours a day.
15:52He put a tracker on her phone, and he sold this idea to Katie so that he would know that
15:59she was safe.
16:01Despite the tracker, Mitchell's paranoia persisted.
16:05He continues to suspect Katie is cheating on him.
16:10Mitchell then lost his job because he was coming home to check where she was all of the time.
16:19When Richardson loses his job, Katie actually becomes Richardson's sole priority.
16:28That allows him to dominate and control 24-7.
16:33When a person like Richardson forms this level of controlling obsession,
16:40the relationship with Katie is only ever going to go in one direction.
16:47My husband and I quite often talked about kidnapping her, taking her away, breaking that mind control.
16:55But that would have been, we would have been making her choose.
16:59And to make her choose between him and her, we would have lost.
17:02As hard as this is to say, it was better to allow her to choose to go back to him,
17:08knowing that she'd be back a few days later, than to risk saying,
17:13you have to choose Katie, we would never have seen her.
17:17I wanted to keep some form of contact with her.
17:22Just over a year after meeting Mitchell, having suffered months of isolation and abuse,
17:29Katie finally tells her sister the painful reason why she hasn't ended the relationship.
17:37During one night when I was round for a party and he'd flipped out,
17:42I managed to get her on her own for about two minutes and she broke down and she told me
17:45she was afraid of him
17:47and that she didn't know how to get away from him.
17:50And when I asked her why she'd never told me this before,
17:53she said that she was trying to protect me and I told her it was my job to protect her.
18:06Mitchell took Katie to Egypt for her 21st birthday and Katie was very, very excited.
18:11I think she was looking forward to the holiday because she thought he would relax
18:14and when he was relaxed they got on or, you know, the relationship was easier.
18:19It may have been a change of scene, but it was the same old story.
18:25That evening when they arrived on her 21st birthday in front of other guests at the hotel,
18:32he punched her in the face and gave her a black eye.
18:35She spent the majority of the holiday with thick makeup on trying to cover a black eye.
18:41Again, she said that she'd moved, he hadn't meant to hit her.
18:44That was a usual excuse.
18:46He was aiming for the wall and she got in the way.
18:49And then after that the violence seemed to get worse and worse.
18:56On the evening of the 8th of October, Mitchell finds a dress in Katie's bag,
19:02which he thinks is nightwear, making him wrongly suspect that she's cheating.
19:08He's angry and his use of alcohol and drugs is about to make for a dangerous cocktail.
19:15He started to drink and he started to take tablets.
19:19He took a quantity of Valium, drank a lot of a bottle of Jack Daniels,
19:23threatening to throw himself off the balcony if she left.
19:27Fueled by alcohol and drugs,
19:30this dangerous cocktail results in a violent, unprovoked attack on Katie.
19:38It was in the early hours of the morning that the neighbours called the police
19:42because they said for the first time they were frightened for Katie's life.
19:46And he was arrested and taken into police custody.
19:51My mum actually informed me of what had happened.
19:54Um, and I...
19:56I was devastated, um, and angry and all of the emotions really,
20:00because I felt like, you know, she was my baby sister
20:03and I wanted to protect her and I couldn't.
20:06Um, so yeah, it was really heartbreaking.
20:10During his police interview, Richardson refuses to cooperate.
20:15Can you tell me where you were last night?
20:18No comment, sir.
20:19Okay. Can you tell me who you were with last night?
20:22No comment.
20:23Can you remember what happened last night?
20:26Well, I was just going to say no comment.
20:28I can't really remember, sir, no comment.
20:31Crucial to the police case against Richardson
20:33was any evidence Katie could offer.
20:37However, despite the brutality of the attack,
20:41she decided not to take the matter any further.
20:45I believe she didn't make any formal complaint against him,
20:50mostly out of fear.
20:51At this point, you know, he was almost all she had,
20:54or that's how she, that's how he made her believe.
20:57I still believe at this point she loved him
20:59and believed that he would change for her.
21:02And I still believe at this point she had hoped he would change.
21:08During his police interview, Richardson refuses to cooperate.
21:15But whilst Richardson is in custody, Katie seizes the opportunity
21:20and decides to move out of their shared flat
21:23and into her own place.
21:26I can't begin to tell you how amazing it was to think that she was finally,
21:30her decision, not being forced into it by anybody,
21:34she was making the decision to leave.
21:35It was incredible.
21:36And it was going to be fantastic and the start of a whole new life.
21:41So when Katie first moved into her new flat,
21:44it was kept a secret so that it was very much a safe house
21:48and a panic alarm was fitted at the flat.
21:51And Katie did seem happier.
21:52She did start seeing friends again.
21:54She started messaging a bit more.
21:56And she was looking for work and just really looking to the future.
22:03Mitchell Richardson is released on bail with one condition.
22:09He mustn't contact Katie or her family.
22:14But will he comply?
22:17And more importantly, is Katie now safe?
22:21He was released.
22:23And within hours, he was on the phone to Katie.
22:29Demanding to know where she was.
22:31So she blocked his number.
22:34And he immediately started to phone me.
22:37And he was desperate for information about where she was.
22:40I said to him that I was really quite worried about her.
22:43You know, if he stopped all of this and he got help,
22:45then she might come back.
22:46Because I said, she loves you.
22:48She loves you.
22:49But he laughed and he said that she would come back anyway.
22:53I said I was worried.
22:54You know, I said, I'm frightened for you.
22:56For Katie, of you.
22:59And he laughed and said, well, you're probably right.
23:02It was a horrible conversation.
23:04And one of the last things he said to me before I ended the conversation was,
23:07well, you know I could easily kill her with drugs and you'd never prove it.
23:15I truly believed he was going to kill her.
23:45I tried all morning to get hold of Katie and her phone was switched off.
23:49So eventually I tried Mitchell.
23:52His phone was switched off.
23:54Been to the flat.
23:55Nobody there.
23:56So I went early to the police station and told them that I was genuinely worried.
24:00I got a call from my mum to say that they were both missing.
24:04And I was actually at uni at the time, so I left uni and we all went out searching for
24:08her.
24:11For 48 gruelling hours, the search continues.
24:14Everybody, the police as well, were out looking for them, couldn't find them.
24:19And I was convinced that something terrible had happened.
24:24Five days after Richardson is released on bail, the police receive shocking information,
24:31suggesting he's holding Katie hostage in his flat.
24:37When the police forced the door open, Mitchell had heard them as well and he just sat in an armchair.
24:42It was a tiny little room.
24:45Waiting.
24:47Katie was on the bed, on the pillows, sort of all crunched up.
24:52And they arrested him and took him away.
24:56He'd held her there all night, beating her black and blue.
24:58And when I got there, I barely recognised my own child.
25:01Lots of bruises.
25:05So the police officer said to her, Katie, we really need you to give some evidence to stop this.
25:11So that's what we did. We took her straight to the police station.
25:16I've never, ever been so proud of her as I was on that day.
25:22And she was very brave enough to decide to do a video statement of what had happened the night before.
25:30He called me, saying that he had nowhere to stay.
25:34He said that he was really cold and I felt sorry for him.
25:38So I said, come back to Vine in the end.
25:41She looks so young and vulnerable.
25:44You can tell she's nervous.
25:45But yes, it's emotional.
25:47It's seeing her so vulnerable.
25:52Katie tells the police that once inside her flat,
25:55Richardson began accusing her of cheating and became increasingly angry.
26:02He was spitting on my floor, he was spitting on me.
26:05And then he actually passed me my phone.
26:07I said, go, call the police, then.
26:10And I was like, okay.
26:11So I was trying to do it.
26:13And he was like, well, let's see how fast I can get here.
26:15Because by the time I get here, I'll kill you.
26:17And he said, you have come to the door.
26:20I'll do the same for them.
26:21You and I.
26:23I thought I was going to die, basically.
26:27Because, obviously, him saying that he wants to kill someone and that he hates me.
26:30I thought he could do it.
26:32She thought he could do it.
26:34I'm sorry, that's really hard to hear.
26:37It went like that and obviously battered my nose,
26:39which made my nose completely poor, poor blood.
26:44And it held me against the bed for quite a while.
26:47It was like holding me like that.
26:49Okay.
26:49And I could breathe, basically.
26:52It's just really horrible to think that this 33-year-old man
26:57could do that to my 21-year-old child.
27:00I said to her, Mitch, I'm genuinely scared of you now.
27:02Can you please get out of my house?
27:04I couldn't believe someone that I thought last week would do that to me.
27:07It's heartbreaking hearing her little voice telling of this beatings
27:12and of how he controlled her and how he told her he was going to kill her.
27:17And again, she's asking him to go and he's just not listening.
27:24Gosh, to see her.
27:26Sorry.
27:30Richardson's threats don't stop there.
27:33Well, basically, so they said to go around to her mum's
27:35and kick the door down.
27:39And basically, well, her.
27:42And at one point, he said that he was in a slight threat.
27:44I just couldn't believe the way he was talking about her mum.
27:48She's always, you know, been civil to him.
27:51I was generally scared at one point that he was going to go.
27:54She's scared that he's going to come and hurt me
27:57while she's being strangled.
28:03She wasn't still thinking of herself, was she?
28:07That's what the big thing.
28:09And that was the thing that really was.
28:12If they hadn't arrived when they had, Katie would have been dead.
28:18During the interview, the police focused their questioning
28:21on Katie's relationship with Richardson.
28:25I've almost sort of, like, gone into a little bubble with him.
28:28Right, it's just me and him.
28:30I don't know, that's my normality, if that makes sense.
28:33First relationship, first boyfriend.
28:35I've never let my guard down to anyone.
28:37And I felt like he, you know, he was anyone that understood me.
28:41I still do nothing, really.
28:43He's got the most genuine heart ever.
28:46And I love it. I don't know if I'll get very strong.
28:49But obviously, he has got a drug problem.
28:52But when he's on drugs, he's just a different person.
28:58And when he does take a game, he's very paranoid.
29:02He's like, it's like, you say.
29:04He'd hit me and then he'd step back and then he'd hit me again.
29:07To teach her a lesson. That's what he always says.
29:09Teach me a lesson.
29:13Sorry, I have no words for that.
29:16And to hit her, to teach her a lesson, not just once,
29:18but over and over.
29:20What sort of man does that?
29:23When Richardson states that he's hitting Katie to teach her a lesson,
29:30I think you've got the essence of what their relationship was actually like.
29:35It's about master and servant.
29:38There's a sense of the state of masochism in terms of what their relationship had become.
29:44Because, of course, what he's trying to do is create somebody who's totally obedient to whatever it is that he
29:51would like to happen.
29:53And, of course, that's not about a true relationship.
29:55That's about him exercising total domination, total control.
30:02You know, he says, you know, I'll buy you everything you want.
30:06I don't care about the money.
30:07I, like, sort of think I just want, like, a healthy relationship.
30:10I mean, like, 90% of the time, he treats me well.
30:14It's just when...it's just literally drugs.
30:17That's it.
30:18And there's anger problems.
30:20He has got anger issues as well as drug issues.
30:23She's right.
30:23I've seen him switch from towering over me, raging, to...
30:29It was almost like a light bulb, and it would switch off.
30:32He was very much a Jekyll and Hyde.
30:34I knew that even though she loved him, and this was probably the most hardest thing she'd ever done,
30:40but she was so brave to speak out and tell the truth and just be honest about what was really
30:45going on.
30:49Just a few hours later, Richardson was brought in for questioning by detectives.
30:56You've been arrested on suspicion of an assault.
30:58I thought to myself, she's off to go off to sleep with someone.
31:02And I was high and...
31:05Did you say you'll stab that?
31:07No, I didn't say I'll stab my girlfriend.
31:09Sure?
31:10Sure.
31:11Sure.
31:12And you didn't say you'll stab anyone in your country there?
31:14No, I just wanted to die, to be honest with you.
31:16I'll be honest with you.
31:17I wanted to f***ing die.
31:18I wanted to take my own dose and die.
31:19I'd have had enough of life.
31:22Everything.
31:25I'd still want to die right now.
31:27No, you let me out.
31:28I'd be having to f***ing kill myself.
31:31We'd have a perfect relationship if there was no cocaine in my system.
31:34If we're sober, we're amazing together.
31:41I'd love to see you.
31:42He's beaten her.
31:44He's held her overnight.
31:45He's tortured her.
31:46He's strangled her.
31:47He's cut her lip.
31:48And there is no remorse.
31:51All he's thinking about there is himself.
31:54I haven't heard one thing where he's said,
31:56I'm sorry, I know I've done wrong.
31:59How is she?
32:00There's no concern about Katie whatsoever.
32:08In court, Richardson pleads guilty to criminal damage, resisting arrest and two counts of assault.
32:17He's due to be sentenced six weeks later.
32:20But despite previously breaching his bail conditions, he is again released on bail.
32:26I was always worried that Mitchell would have a hold over her.
32:29But he had a sentence hearing not long after and he was going to prison.
32:34And so I believed that if we could keep her safe until that point,
32:37then after that we could help her rebuild her life and she would be happy again.
32:44Julie was very concerned for Katie, very concerned.
32:47She said to me, I'm so worried he's going to kill her.
32:50And it was one of those throwaway comments that you didn't actually think that anything would happen.
33:02I don't think there's any way that this can be sugar-coated.
33:07But the decision to grant Richardson bail is a major, a catastrophic error of judicial judgment.
33:18When one looks at that film of him talking, he is just filled with self-pity.
33:25There is absolutely no remorse there.
33:28And rather than think through what we know he had been doing to Katie,
33:34it seemed to me that Richardson was able to convince the authorities
33:39of a narrative that he was carefully constructing.
33:43And of course, by granting him bail, it is merely opening the door to him using lethal violence.
33:58After he'd been released on bail from the court,
34:02we believe that there was a time that they weren't in touch
34:04and Katie was back to her or building herself back to her usual self.
34:09She was starting to come back to us.
34:12It was absolutely lovely to see that.
34:15But after a few weeks, Katie suddenly stopped taking her mum's calls.
34:21It's a deeply worrying development for the family.
34:25Had Richardson forced his way back into her life?
34:30I sent her a message to say, I am starting to get worried.
34:34You know, we haven't heard properly.
34:35Haven't seen you for a few days.
34:38Can we meet?
34:39Yep, yep, we'll definitely meet, definitely meet.
34:42And she cancelled that one.
34:45She kept assuring me she was safe.
34:47So we got to Emma's birthday on the 14th.
34:49And she'd still been in touch, but just very small, quick text messages.
34:56And I spoke to Emma and Emma hadn't heard from her.
34:59And that's when, quarter past seven that evening, the police knocked on the door.
35:05And I don't really remember a great deal after that.
35:10I remember bits until Andy picked me up off the floor.
35:13And I remember I could hear this noise.
35:15And I've heard people say it before.
35:17And I thought, stupid.
35:18I could hear this noise.
35:20It was like a howling.
35:21And it was me.
35:24And he picked me up off the floor.
35:33And the policeman left.
35:38All we were told on that night was that Katie and Mitchell had been found both dead.
35:45So this one police officer, he put his arm out to stop me from entering the flat.
35:50And I just cried and said, is it my sister? Is it my sister?
35:55And his only answer at that point was, you need to leave because we're about to bring their dead bodies
36:00out.
36:02Hearing those words just absolutely broke me.
36:06I can't even begin to explain the pain that I felt.
36:10Sorry, I'm going to get emotional now.
36:12But also the guilt that I felt because she was my baby sister and I was supposed to protect her.
36:17And I promised her that I would look after her and that nothing bad would happen to her.
36:22And knowing that I couldn't keep that promise is always just her.
36:30Katie did leave him. Eventually she left him.
36:33She did all the right things.
36:35She got her own place. She said she got her panic alarms.
36:38She did everything that she should have done correctly.
36:42But still somehow he managed to get to her.
36:52Very soon afterwards we were told that this was, it was drugs overdose.
36:59And when I asked about what about the domestic violence, what about the threats to kill, what about all of
37:04that, they said to me, Julie, it's drugs.
37:07That's it. That's the end of it. That's what it is. It's drugs.
37:11They did an investigation, but they did an investigation based on the fact that it was the drugs that killed
37:16my daughter.
37:24What was put on social media about Katie and Mitchell was that it had been a Romeo and Juliet scenario
37:31where they had been told by the police that they had to stay apart.
37:35Mitchell was on bail. They weren't allowed to spend time together. So they decided in their wisdom to take their
37:43own lives.
37:44Can you imagine how that felt, how my daughters felt, knowing the extent of how much he'd beaten her, how
37:52much he'd hurt her, how brave it was of her to leave in the first place.
37:58It was, it was heartbreaking.
38:03There's never been one point that I've ever felt that it was a suicide pact or that she chose to
38:09die with him.
38:12Knowing my sister my whole life, it's just never something that she would do.
38:19We've got to remember that this young woman had shown bravery in terms of reporting what had happened to her
38:27when she was in a relationship with Mitchell.
38:29It denies her agency in terms of planning for the rest of her life.
38:34It denies the fact that she had to be moved into a safe house.
38:39So the idea that somehow she would then take her own life with Mitchell because of her undying love to
38:46him denies everything that we know about domestic abuse.
38:59Just a few weeks earlier, he had threatened to kill her with drugs and we would never prove it.
39:03And a few weeks later, they're both found side by side in the exact manner that he told me he
39:09would do it.
39:10In Katie's own interview with her own words, tells how Mitchell has told her he will kill her.
39:16I thought I was going to die with me and I thought I should do it.
39:20I don't believe in coincidences.
39:24The critical piece of evidence here is Mitchell's specific threat to Julie that I could kill her by using drugs
39:35and you'd never be able to prove it.
39:38And of course, that's exactly the circumstances in which his body and the body of Katie is found.
39:46So this is him enacting a plan to murder.
39:51This is premeditated.
39:53This is evidence that this was not some kind of pact between Romeo and Juliet,
40:00but in fact, an abuser using lethal violence to gain control over his victim.
40:09A coroner holds a joint inquest concluding that both Katie and Mitchell died from an overdose of cocaine and morphine.
40:19Crucially, the coroner is unable to determine how and why they took the drugs.
40:26Katie's family immediately begins a campaign demanding a domestic homicide review.
40:33So the domestic homicide review is when agencies come together to review what happened up until the point of death
40:40to see whether lessons can be learnt and to see what went wrong and to make recommendations for the future.
40:51Such a review can only take place when a death appears to have resulted from violence, abuse or neglect by
41:02someone in an intimate personal relationship with the deceased.
41:07This is part of the justice system.
41:12Over the next two years, the family's request for a domestic homicide review is rejected. Three times.
41:21It was extremely difficult to get a domestic homicide review because at the time they didn't see it as a
41:27murder and therefore told us that we didn't fit the criteria.
41:30But in December 2020, a domestic homicide review is finally granted.
41:40It just meant that finally people were acknowledging that Katie died and had been a victim of domestic abuse.
41:48That might not have caused her actual physical heart to stop, but she was a victim of domestic abuse.
41:57Katie's family were left waiting for the outcome of the review into her case.
42:03It was getting somebody, the authorities to recognise that this hadn't simply been a drug death, that there was something
42:12more to this and that it warranted being looked into.
42:19My theory on Katie's death is that Mitchell knew he had lost control of her.
42:25She'd left him.
42:27And I think that in the last week or two before her death, he started to woo her again and
42:35started to get to see her again.
42:37And I believe he planned to take my daughter's life and to kill himself.
42:45He was due to be sentenced only a couple of weeks later and knowing his previous criminal record for violence
42:52against both men and women, he was going to go to prison for a long time.
42:56And I believe he decided that he would rather die and take her with her than face prison.
43:10I come back here because this is the place that we sent Katie to the stars.
43:16She was too young to go into a box in a dark hole in the ground.
43:21So we put her ashes into fireworks and sent them off from the headland here.
43:25So she would travel the world around in the sea.
43:29I bring these flowers because they're called baby's breath.
43:33Katie was my baby.
43:35So these flowers are for her.
43:40Katie dying will never, there'll never be a reason, there'll never be a good thing.
43:44But if we tell her story and one woman listens and gets out, that's a legacy and that means that
43:52she'll live on.
43:54There is a pattern for women out there.
43:56And if we can only recognize it, I think we could intervene much sooner.
44:00And if I had been aware of this and been able to pick up the signs, then maybe we could
44:05have intervened.
44:06I've said it over and over, she was 21, beautiful, young, loved, good job, hard working.
44:14If it can happen to Katie, it can happen to anybody.
44:21I miss everything about my little sister.
44:24She really was my best friend.
44:27I feel like she lost her life far too early and she had so much to give in this world.
44:33And there were so many things that she still wanted to do.
44:36And knowing she'll never get the chance to do that.
44:40Just, yeah, it's really sad.
44:42She was just on the cusp of adulthood and all the things that, you know, we've all experienced.
44:50And she'll never have that.
44:51She'll never get married.
44:52She'll never have children.
44:54She'll never have that.
44:56It's all just been taken off her.
44:58Do I hate Mitchell?
45:00No, because I'm not going to waste that amount of energy on him.
45:04But I do hate what he did to my daughter when she was alive.
45:11Do I think Katie would still be alive if she hadn't met Mitchell?
45:15Yes, absolutely.
45:19I wish more than anything that I could turn back time and stop that initial meeting.
45:26Because then I'd still have my baby sister here.
45:31Katie's family had to wait for seven years before the domestic homicide review was completed in 2023.
45:40And that DHR, domestic homicide review, was reviewed by the Home Office in 2024.
45:46And what did it demonstrate?
45:49It demonstrated that Katie faced severe domestic abuse from Richardson.
45:56And that time after time, the authorities missed the warning signs that might have saved her life.
46:04The TONESS
46:33.
46:33You
Comments