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Short filmTranscript
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
00:34signs and red flags.
00:40In this new series, I investigate some of the UK's most harrowing murder cases to understand
00:48how and why these terrible crimes occur.
00:55This is Murder UK.
01:16On a sunny March day, 55-year-old music teacher Christopher Donnelly was reported dead at home.
01:25Though his wife, Hannigret, suggested the death was natural, police were instantly suspicious.
01:33They knew this was no ordinary death, and their initial inquiry focused entirely on proving
01:40that a murder had taken place.
01:44Detectives began questioning Hannigret Donnelly.
01:50Within your family, what would you say your role is?
02:01Yeah, I don't know.
02:07I'd like to know what's going on, but I'd like to be informed as to what is going on.
02:17I don't like it when people talk behind my back.
02:21Over the coming weeks, evidence would emerge suggesting something sinister happened behind
02:27the closed doors of an ordinary home on an ordinary street.
02:33The first that the emergency services knew about Christopher's death was when they received
02:38a call from Hannigret using her neighbour's phone to say that her husband had died the night before.
02:44When they attended, they found Christopher clearly dead on the bathroom floor with a significant
02:51number of injuries.
02:55Hannigret called the emergency services from her neighbour's phone because the Donnelly family,
03:02Hannigret and Christopher, and their four children, had opted out of society, choosing not to own a phone.
03:13She told the operator Christopher had died the night before, claiming she'd tried to revive him.
03:21Emergency services immediately noted the unusual delay.
03:26The patient had reportedly died hours earlier.
03:35The 999 operator questioned a little bit, saying when did he die, and she told him it was 12 hours
03:42ago,
03:42and that she hadn't called in the interim because they were coming to terms with his death.
03:48Police and ambulance turned up at the same time.
03:53Hannigret's decision to wait 12 hours before calling for help, and also using a neighbour's phone to do so,
04:02isn't a sign of panic, but a deliberate, calculated act.
04:08That delay of 12 hours allows her to decide what her story's going to be, clean up the crime scene,
04:18calm down.
04:19So from the very start, Hannigret is deliberately staging a narrative that she would like the outside world to accept
04:29about what happens to her husband.
04:34Wounds over his head and face looked several days old.
04:39They'd already scabbed over.
04:42A paramedic also noted a significant admission.
04:47Hannigret stated they'd had a falling out, and when that happened, she'd hit Christopher with a rolling pin.
04:56Damning evidence begins to emerge.
05:00She admitted that she had assaulted him at some point in the past, but he had just simply died.
05:07All in all, a series of highly abnormal events seem to have taken place.
05:16Leaving somebody that at some point you have presumably loved,
05:20regardless of what's happened in your relationship,
05:23to die on their own, on a bathroom floor,
05:27and not to call the authorities until some 12 hours after life is extinct,
05:33indicates a lack of any moral fibre, a lack of any compassion.
05:40It is not a normal response to somebody's death,
05:44and it's one of the most chilling things about this woman.
05:48Police bring the German-born Hannigret in for further questioning.
05:53She had admitted to assaulting Christopher in the past,
05:57and was that what happened here?
06:00He tripped over and fell, and she fell against the crate.
06:05There was a crate, and the crate got broken, and then he cut himself on the head.
06:12Her answers were convoluted.
06:16Police quickly suspected this was far from an accident.
06:20The wounds to Christopher's head were clearly not caused by falling on a crate.
06:25When Christopher Donnelly's body was examined,
06:3078 external injuries were found,
06:33and internal injuries, which included a fractured spine and a fractured neck.
06:40Even a cursory examination of the body would have clearly revealed evidence of domestic abuse.
06:50There was a number of crucial findings within the home,
06:52which actually did point towards this being a long-running systemic abuse.
06:57There was blood spatters found on the ceiling,
07:00there was blood found on the walls, and blood found on furniture,
07:02which clearly indicated this isn't just somebody who's got ill and died,
07:08this is someone who's been violently assaulted on a number of occasions.
07:13It's the forensic discovery of blood spatter on the ceilings and on the wall
07:21that really give us evidence that what happens to Christopher
07:26isn't a singular abusive attack,
07:29but characterised by systematic abuse over many months, many years.
07:37And of course, what we tend to forget is that whether you're a man or a woman,
07:42you're more likely to be murdered in a domestic setting than in an outdoor public space.
07:50The home for Christopher was not a place of sanctuary.
07:54It's the forensic evidence in particular that refutes Hanegret's narrative
08:01that this was an accident, that Christopher had simply fallen onto the crate.
08:08Christopher's official cause of death was listed as bronchal pneumonia,
08:13but police had to determine if the death was accelerated by his wife's violence.
08:20Was this a murder case?
08:22When questioned, Hanegret Donnelly offered a bizarre justification.
08:27Her husband had entered a trance,
08:31and she had hit him with a rolling pin simply to force him to snap out of it.
08:38I did hit him a bit harder sometimes, and then,
08:43but as I said, he never, he, he, it wasn't that he sort of fell,
08:48fell over and lost consciousness.
08:52Hanegret claimed that frequently the abuse was due to some desire to bring him out of what she called a
08:59trance,
09:00that he would be in a state where he wasn't listening, and she would want to revive him from that.
09:06But what we know is that Christopher was a very, very ill man by this point.
09:11He was both physically and mentally weak.
09:16One of the strangest features of this case is the weaponization of Christopher's health.
09:26Hanegret actually claims that she was beating Christopher so as to sort of waken him out of his trance-like
09:37state.
09:37Whereas, in fact, his trance-like state is caused by the fact he has been beaten regularly by his wife.
09:48The belief that somehow she can talk her way out of what has happened to Christopher.
09:55She thinks because she controlled that domestic sphere in the way that she did,
10:00that she can control all the spheres outside the home in relation to explaining what might have happened to her
10:07husband.
10:09The police interview tapes offer a crucial window into the true nature of Hanegret Donnelly.
10:16What I see here is somebody whose body language is very much at odds with the words coming out of
10:22her mouth.
10:22She's used to providing a believable, rational, reasonable, almost professional account of what happened.
10:31What was the real cause of Christopher Donnelly's death?
10:38Bronchopneumonia or years of beatings at the hands of his wife.
10:52The violence inflicted upon Christopher Donnelly was dismissed by his wife Hanegret as nothing more than banter between husband and
11:02wife.
11:03It was more like, so we had a chase around the kitchen table or something.
11:08It was more, you know, sometimes just, um, yeah.
11:13Sorry, wouldn't you say chase around the kitchen table?
11:16In a more sort of light-hearted way.
11:19Her story is simply not adding up.
11:23To charge Hanegret with murder, detectives had to uncover the truth hidden inside an ordinary home on the Buryfields estate.
11:37The couple had been married for 23 years.
11:42Christopher, a music teacher with a biochemistry degree, was a talented musician.
11:49Their life, a husband, wife and four children, was a routine dictated by the strong, matriarchal influence of Hanegret Donnelly.
12:02Hanegret Donnelly in some respects is a bit of a mystery.
12:05She and her family very much kept themselves to themselves.
12:08She trained as a midwife, but in fact hadn't worked since she'd had her children.
12:13She'd been a stay-at-home mum and homeschooling them.
12:15Her husband Christopher had a science background, but he was a very talented musician.
12:20He'd worked as a music teacher for a long time and performed as well.
12:24He was around the same age, a year older than his wife.
12:28They'd been married for 23 years.
12:31So far, the Donnelly story seems normal.
12:35But aspects of the household are starkly dissimilar from the lives of their neighbours.
12:43They were incredibly a religious family with deeply held beliefs.
12:46They apparently had some type of view around there being an end-of-day's existence.
12:52They shunned modern technology.
12:55What emerges is that the Donnelly family, Hanegret, Christopher and their four children,
13:02had opted out of society, with Hanegret at the heart of every decision.
13:10Hanegret had gradually began to take more control of things in their relationship.
13:17She had little interest in the world beyond the confines of their four walls.
13:23Such was their mistrust that they took their children out of mainstream education
13:26and schooled them at home.
13:28All the reports are that they lived a very insular existence
13:32and really didn't associate with neighbours or anything particularly such as that.
13:39I get the sense that Hanegret creates within the home a kind of psychological fortress.
13:48The home becomes her domain.
13:51The children are homeschooled.
13:54She cuts off technology to the house.
13:58She controls the influences within the house itself.
14:02And therefore there is no contradictory voices.
14:08Was this isolation part of a bigger picture?
14:13Experts agree that isolation is a tried and trusted technique
14:18that's utilised by abusers to gain greater power over vulnerable victims.
14:26It is possible, of course, for families to be very happy and self-sufficient,
14:30to homeschool their own children, to avoid the evils of the internet and modern technology.
14:37But it also makes it much, much more difficult for any authorities to keep an eye on what's going on
14:44and to raise concerns if they see anything out of the ordinary.
14:50Christopher's life took a turn after his marriage.
14:54Though it started well, police uncover that he had become both physically weak
14:59and mentally frail in recent years.
15:04Her husband initially was a talented musician, but quite clearly over time became more and more and more weak
15:12and became a shadow of his former self.
15:15By January 2018, Christopher was effectively disabled and unable to walk.
15:23His health simply dwindled over the years of his marriage, likely due to the injuries he suffered at his wife's
15:33hands.
15:35We know that Christopher stopped working as a music teacher in 2015 due to ill health.
15:41And we can only assume that some of that ill health was as a result of Hannah Grett's treatment of
15:46him.
15:47His mental health began to suffer.
15:49And what's particularly distressing about this case is the knowledge that Hannah Grett was abusing her husband
15:56at the very time when he needed her support.
15:59So gradually Christopher became weaker, not just physically, but mentally, until he wasn't able to defend himself at all.
16:08Detectives needed to know more from this outwardly cooperative woman,
16:13who, to many, seemed like an unlikely abuser.
16:20The pathologist said he had never seen a case where so many injuries were inflicted.
16:29That kind of says it all for Christopher, a 55-year-old man,
16:35to have been subjected to such abuse which led to so much scar tissue
16:40that even a home office pathologist was shocked.
16:46There were a number of old injuries as well that showed that Christopher's abuse had started many years previously.
16:54He had a cauliflower ear, which is more commonly associated with rugby player injuries,
17:00and a fracture to the cartilage in his voice box, which was consistent with attempted strangulation.
17:07These are not minor injuries. This is not a bitter peak.
17:11This is systematic physical abuse using third-party objects, not just using her fists.
17:21The critical question for detectives was simple.
17:25Can a death from pneumonia be directly linked to years of sustained beating?
17:32There are different types of pneumonia, and some of them strike much more quickly than others.
17:37Some of them are very, very virulent.
17:39Some of them can strike completely healthy people
17:42and leave them almost at death's door within hours.
17:47But others are only likely to strike if somebody's physical condition has been so weakened
17:54that that that germ can invade more deeply.
17:58It seems highly likely that Christopher was in such a physically weakened state
18:04that even his immune system was giving up.
18:10The pathologist's conclusion was that Christopher didn't die from natural causes.
18:16He didn't die from bronchial pneumonia.
18:19Instead, he died because of the 78 injuries that the pathologist was able to determine.
18:27And therefore, in the eyes of the law, that's where we can bring a murder charge.
18:33The abuse of men by women is more common than many people think.
18:38Alex Skeel, who was trapped in a long-term abusive relationship until his former partner was jailed,
18:46considers the parallels with what happened to Christopher Donnelly.
18:52You can't do anything right.
18:57And I always think of it as if you offer to do the cooking,
19:02you're the worst cook in the world.
19:04Then if you don't offer to do the cooking, it's, oh, well, you never cook.
19:07So you never, ever, right, you're always wrong.
19:10And there's so many examples that you're always walking on eggshells, as they say,
19:13and you're just so frightened of doing anything wrong.
19:16And then it gets to the point where you almost try and avoid any triggers that you know that will
19:25trigger her off.
19:26You turn into just a robot and that's, you're just, that's just your way of life and you can't get
19:33out of it.
19:36In the vast majority of domestic abuse cases, men are the perpetrators.
19:42But as detectives consider a murder charge, it's clear Hanegret Donnelly's case is far from usual.
19:51It's possible to divide Hanegret's behaviour into two different types of abuse.
19:57So on the one hand, there was very strong evidence of systemic physical abuse, beatings with blunt objects,
20:06punching, jabbing in Christopher's throat.
20:09I suffered abuse for five years.
20:13Um, it started off with really small little things that happened.
20:17And it was simple things like, oh, you can't wear those shoes.
20:21I prefer these shoes. Oh, you can't have your hair like that.
20:23I don't like the top you're wearing. I don't like the colour.
20:26So that type of control was down to Hanegret's desire for knowledge of everything that Christopher was doing,
20:33where he was going, what he was thinking, withholding trips to the toilet, withholding medical treatment,
20:40complete control of somebody else's life.
20:44What's unusual here is that that abuse does not seem to be motivated, as we might expect,
20:49by any kind of anger or hatred of her victim, but rather by an unquestioning belief in her own absolute
20:57authority.
20:59This very much speaks to a woman who is a complete bully,
21:05who is an abuser and relatively unusually a physical abuser of a man,
21:12but also a woman who has no remorse and who believes that her enjoyment of life,
21:20her satisfaction and that avoiding any irritations of her life are more important than anything else.
21:27It may even be that she got perverse pleasure out of tormenting her eventually completely powerless husband.
21:37Nine out of ten murder perpetrators are men,
21:43but that does mean there is a small group of women who are prepared to use lethal violence.
21:50And Hanegret is one of those people.
21:52She was enjoying the control, the total control that she exercised over Christopher,
21:59the way that she created this isolated environment in which she could do as she pleased.
22:06It's now believed that Christopher suffered over a decade of abuse.
22:13Throughout that entire time, his physical condition meant he was rendered effectively defenceless.
22:20So with every subsequent act of violence that she inflicted upon her husband,
22:26he was weakened and therefore the next act of violence became even more impactful,
22:30was even more powerful, had an even more powerful effect.
22:35She reduced him over time almost to the state of a wounded animal.
22:39It was more like we had a chase around the kitchen table or something.
22:44It was more, you know, sometimes just, um, yeah...
22:49Sorry, what did you say?
22:51A chase around the kitchen table in a more sort of light-hearted way.
22:55The picture detectives are forming is a living hell for a man hidden in plain sight.
23:03Christopher, beaten, scolded, trapped.
23:07Alex Skeel understands that feeling.
23:11Yeah, you just don't want to leave because you fear that possibly something could happen to the children.
23:16She even threatened to kill me if I tried to leave.
23:18But you're just stuck.
23:21The police were now uncovering the truly horrific reality of life inside the Donnelly family home.
23:38Four children were part of the Donnelly family, yet not one of them complained about their mother's treatment of their
23:45father.
23:46Given the circumstances, it's highly unlikely that they would have been able to.
23:54It doesn't surprise me that none of the children came forward to the authorities.
23:59It's clear that Hannah Gret ruled that family with a rod of iron.
24:04And no doubt anyone in that family, children as well as Christopher, were absolutely terrified of her.
24:11Because the family had no visitors and saw few people, Christopher had no sense of hope.
24:18His children were isolated from anyone who might help too.
24:22What shocked me the most was just how vulnerable Christopher was.
24:28And the fact that nobody noticed that here was a family with children who were living on a very ordinary
24:35estate in a very ordinary town.
24:38And yet, somehow, they went under the radar.
24:42The key to Hannah Gret's long-term abuse of Christopher was, in fact, ensuring their children's silence.
24:53You know, the children weren't able to talk about what it was that they saw.
25:00The fact that their mother was abusing their father.
25:03The children's silence becomes also a means by which we have to recognize that this was a very psychologically controlling
25:12domestic environment.
25:14And in that respect, the children are also victims.
25:19This systematic psychological controlled environment creates almost a vacuum in which it's possible to physically abuse Christopher for year after
25:36year after year.
25:39Hannah Gret Donnelly's power over Christopher was unquestionable.
25:43The abuse was so frequent it became the norm.
25:47The relationship dynamic had shifted so completely that Christopher was unable to function without his wife say so.
25:56What is clear here is that the level of control and the level of abuse made this an almost everyday
26:05occurrence.
26:07A level of abuse that had simply become accepted.
26:10It's just so lonely and dark and you don't have anyone to talk to.
26:16I can imagine there was probably no conversations that went on between them other than arguments.
26:21It's the way it is and it's just a really horrible way to live.
26:26I have read some reports where Hannah Gret suggested that Christopher almost invited these beatings.
26:33It's the way it is.
26:37Well, I struggle to think that a relationship that plumbed the depths that this did was ever a relationship that
26:47was ever built on equality.
26:51To me, it feels like somebody who was almost brainwashed as a child, somebody who's come out of some really
26:57kind of bizarre childhood upbringing that has taught her to think in this way about human relationships and about the
27:05need to maintain control.
27:07That's what I would suspect with Hannah Gret.
27:10What we do know is that her power over Christopher was absolute.
27:17After the police arrested Hannah Gret, they seized her diary and among the entries in there was clear evidence of
27:23abuse.
27:24Not least the fact that Hannah Gret had refused to let her husband go to the toilet.
27:29And this withholding of a basic human need is particularly cruel.
27:35It's not just controlling, but it's dehumanising and it's a particularly shocking part of this case.
27:43It now seems likely that Christopher Donnelly, suffering from years of abuse, actually thought he was the one in the
27:51wrong.
27:53Blaming it upon yourself when you are a victim is quite common.
27:57Most people that I've spoken to, that's male, female, whatever, gender, age, ethnicity.
28:04I've had thousands of people message me, they've all said the same thing.
28:08I thought it was my fault, when in fact it isn't at all.
28:11They just made to believe that.
28:13And that's why it kind of makes it worse, because I think for a lot of people, you try and
28:20sort of please them more to make out that it isn't your fault.
28:25Because you just completely feel that it's your fault and you're doing something wrong, so you try and change it.
28:30But then it goes back to what I was saying about cooking the food and not cooking the food.
28:33It just goes back to that. It's a vicious circle and it just goes round and round and round.
28:38And I think, yeah, you do feel as though it's your own fault, but then part of you knows that
28:45it isn't.
28:46The problem facing detectives having amassed evidence of abuse and control is proving the murder.
28:53If Hannah Gritt is a killer, how can they get her to confess?
28:59To be honest, Hannah Gritt is perfectly composed during her police interviews.
29:05She's calm.
29:07She doesn't feel under pressure.
29:10She's simply selling her narrative.
29:12And that's because she's lived within an environment in which her narrative, her word was law.
29:19Why wouldn't it be law in this environment, too?
29:24An interview in a murder case such as this will be, there'll be a formal strategy which will be agreed
29:29with the senior investigating officer.
29:31First of all, I tried to sort things out with him in sort of a bantering sort of way.
29:40The strategy would have been, we need to find out what's going on, we need to get her talking.
29:43That didn't seem to be a problem. She seemed eager to talk.
29:47And they would then be thinking, I mean, obviously to prove murder, they need to prove that she caused really
29:52serious harm to him and she intended to cause really serious harm to him.
29:56That would then prove murder, bearing in mind, he's dead, if they can prove that she inflicted the injury upon
30:02him that resulted in his death.
30:03During the police interviews, it becomes quickly apparent that for a person like Hannigret, violence is a perfectly acceptable tool
30:14to reinforce her dominance.
30:17I did hit him a bit harder sometimes.
30:22Hannigret Donnelly's police interviews are truly chilling.
30:26I don't think I've ever heard a criminal talk in such a dispassionate way about such a horrific crime.
30:33As I said, he never, it wasn't that he sort of fell over and lost consciousness.
30:41She dismisses her actions as banter and as normal behaviour in a relationship and really shows no sign of compassion
30:53or love for the man that she's killed.
30:55It was more like we had a chase around the kitchen table or something. It was more, you know, sometimes
31:02just, yeah.
31:05Sorry, what did you say?
31:06A chase around the kitchen table in a more sort of lighthearted way.
31:10It was quite disturbing to watch.
31:12She was incredibly calm, not visibly distressed, and almost matter-of-fact in, she actually described what had happened at
31:23the house in almost a forensic level of detail.
31:26She would almost talk about that there would be banter between them while she was assaulting him.
31:33It was an incredibly cavalier view of what was a terrible systemic level of violence towards her husband.
31:41She came across as incredibly cold and detached from what must have been an entirely horrific situation.
31:48I'd like to know what's going on, so, but, yeah.
31:52It sounds very much as if this woman was paranoid.
31:56I'd like to be informed as to what is going on.
31:59I don't like, um, like when people talk behind my back.
32:03She was absolutely determined to be in control at all times, and she didn't like any secrets going on.
32:10Now, that paranoia might have meant that she felt that people were scheming behind her back.
32:15Heaven knows, they had reason to try and scheme and get away.
32:18So, it was all part of this idea of keeping control.
32:21This was clearly a woman who was terrified of losing control.
32:26I get upset when I feel that there's some sort of things going on that I'm not told about.
32:35That's why she had to keep her family near her.
32:37She kept them under her thumb inside the home.
32:41Now, that would mean that they wouldn't feel they had anywhere they could go and speak freely.
32:47Anywhere that they could be themselves.
32:49And, of course, anybody that they could turn to for help.
32:54I've met lots of criminals over the course of my police career.
32:58And I've researched even more as a result of my crime-writing years.
33:04I don't think I've ever come across such a terrifying figure as Hannah Gret Donnelly.
33:10The lack of compassion and the extent of her abuse is truly horrific.
33:16And, arguably, if I wrote a character that bad, I'm not sure anyone would believe that she could exist.
33:24The primary challenge for detectives was forcing a confession from Hannah Gret Donnelly.
33:30As they applied pressure, could the truth emerge from how she reacted to their questioning?
33:38Does that mean he's fallen down the whole, pretty much the whole flight of stairs?
33:42No, no. As I said, he...
33:45It's an interesting, gradual evolution of recognition that she just might have done something wrong.
33:52She fell against the crate, there was a crate, and the crate got broken, and then he cut himself.
34:01As Hannah Gret Donnelly tries to explain away her brutal treatment of Christopher, even the rolling pin attack,
34:08what does her body language betray, and how does it contradict her claims about his death?
34:15First of all, I tried to sort of sort things out with him in sort of a bantering sort of
34:23way.
34:24Donnelly freely admits hitting Christopher.
34:28I punched him on his nose severely because I was so angry with him, but he didn't have such a
34:33big cut.
34:34He had just a small cut.
34:36Do you feel that hitting him over the head with a rolling pin, with a hairbrush, using your hands and
34:42fist,
34:43is an appropriate reaction to him acting in that way, being in his strange moods?
34:53It's more like this helping him to come out of some sort of peculiar trance.
35:01Just how uncomfortable she's starting to feel, we can see in the way that she clenches her hands together,
35:07as if trying to give herself some kind of reassurance.
35:13And there's the mystified shaking of the head.
35:17Does that mean he's fallen down the whole, pretty much the whole flight of stairs?
35:20No, no. As I said, he walked.
35:23These times that you've hit him, they weren't a result of him being violent to you?
35:33No.
35:35During the interviews, the detectives tried to establish whether Hannah Grett felt she was justified in doing what she did.
35:47She did not.
35:48Within your family, what would you say your role is?
36:00Yeah, I don't know.
36:02She pauses in annoyance.
36:04She's annoyed at being asked this question.
36:06She thinks it's none of the interviewers' business.
36:09She has never had to explain herself within her household.
36:12I'd like to know what's going on, so, but, yeah.
36:19I'd like to be informed as to what is going on.
36:22I don't like, um, like when people talk behind my back.
36:27I was quite intrigued by the interview footage taken by the police
36:33that Hannah Grett never identifies a family member by their name.
36:38It's always a kind of anonymized.
36:41The environment doesn't include individuals.
36:44It's just simply the family.
36:46She likes to be informed about what's going on.
36:50But no one is ever mentioned.
36:52No one ever gets an identity.
36:55They lack identity in her language because she hasn't given them an identity.
37:01They merely are extensions of herself.
37:06I get upset when I feel that there's some sort of things going on
37:12that I'm not told about.
37:15There's no indication in her, in her face, her expression, her body language
37:19that she's aware that what she's saying is in any way potentially offensive.
37:25It's, it's more like this...
37:32Helping him to come out of some sort of peculiar trans...
37:39Trans... No, I can't say it's a trans, but it's sort of peculiar...
37:44Yeah, feeling, feeling strangely...
37:49I don't know.
37:50This is very interesting where, for a moment, she gives up.
37:55For just a moment, she's exhausted by the questions.
37:59This is the first flicker of recognition to herself that she's guilty,
38:03but also that she may be, be being seen as guilty by the interviewer.
38:07That she may have lost her hold on control.
38:11The use of the word trans by Donnelly may have some elements of truth behind it,
38:17again, because of Christopher's condition.
38:20Bronchopneumonia can cause a wide variety of symptoms,
38:23but of course it can have an impact on your mental state,
38:26because if you're lacking oxygen to the brain
38:29and if you have germs flooding around your body,
38:33you can feel lightheaded, you can feel dizzy, you can feel confused,
38:37and it's entirely possible that your level of consciousness would drop
38:41so that you would enter what his wife described as a, quote,
38:46trance-like state.
38:49No normal wife would dream of dealing with that
38:54by hitting him with a rolling pin to knock it out of him.
38:58But that is exactly what she did,
39:01regardless of whether she's prepared to admit it.
39:06There's a lot of pride in the general body language here.
39:11There's a refusal to alter her expression,
39:14whatever the interviewer throws at her.
39:17The expression is just maintained throughout.
39:20There's no natural response,
39:23and that's an indication of a lot of pride in the personality.
39:28Hannah Grepp had clearly lost touch with any shred of common decency.
39:33She would beat Christopher if he didn't answer a question quickly enough,
39:38or if she felt he was in some kind of trance.
39:42She was evil.
39:44She terrified him.
39:46And she ran that house through fear and intimidation.
39:52One can only imagine what horrors the children may have seen or heard.
40:04To be in the middle of the world,
40:04I feel sorry for him, but, again, I just feel...
40:08I know how he was feeling at that time.
40:11Like, I knew my body was shutting down, and I was waiting to die.
40:15Like, I just thought, well, the next time I get stabbed,
40:18the next time I get hit, it's going to be in the wrong place
40:21or the knife's going to go a little bit deeper
40:23or go in the wrong way.
40:27And eventually, I've just...
40:29My body will shut down and I can completely...
40:32I don't know, I'm uncomfortable thinking about it.
40:36Dehumanising Christopher, which is precisely what Hanegret did,
40:40helped her justify the beating she inflicted.
40:45So, Hanegret is what we call a victim-as-object murderer,
40:50meaning that she doesn't see her victim as fully human,
40:54so that actually they're not that relevant to her as an individual
40:58in any kind of emotional sense.
41:00And the murders, the murders in these types of cases,
41:03can often be the incidental, the consequences,
41:06simply of her enactment of her absolute control on an object.
41:11The murder is often incidental.
41:15I get the distinct impression that because of the systematic abuse
41:22that Christopher had suffered,
41:25that he no longer has, in Hanegret's mind,
41:30the status of being human,
41:32that he's been reduced to being an object.
41:36He's denied his humanity.
41:38And because he's denied his humanity,
41:42that perversely will allow the abuse to escalate.
41:47Because once you deny that someone is the same as you,
41:52that someone is lesser than you,
41:55it is much easier to cause them harm.
41:59Hanegret's initial wounding charge is escalated to murder
42:03after all the forensic, post-mortem and interview evidence is collated.
42:09Despite the massive amount of evidence,
42:12she enters a not guilty plea.
42:17She also maintained the fact that she never intended to kill her husband.
42:24Despite her not guilty plea,
42:26she was found unanimously guilty by the jury on the 20th of March 2019
42:30and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 16 years.
42:47Hanegret Donnelly is statistically a very rare killer.
42:52However, coercion and murder are much more often perpetrated
42:56by men in domestic abuse cases.
43:00But as Alex Skeel discovered,
43:03violence can come from anybody.
43:06Christopher Donnelly discovered that too.
43:10At the start of our relationship,
43:13it was the first relationship that I had.
43:15So everything felt normal.
43:17But obviously now I can look back and see things and go,
43:20well, that wasn't...
43:20But at the time, I was happy.
43:23It was nice to sort of tell your mates
43:26that you went out at the weekend
43:27and just felt normal.
43:30But obviously things steadily gets worse and worse and worse
43:33and worse and worse and worse.
43:35And then...
43:37I just find it weird that I was...
43:41a sort of young person in sixth form
43:45and then five years later,
43:46for no fault of my own,
43:48I was about two weeks away,
43:52ten days from dying.
43:53And I could feel that happening.
43:56But it wasn't my fault that that was happening.
43:58It was just...
44:01a terrible place to be in.
44:03And there's nothing I could have done about it
44:05because I literally had no money.
44:10Hanegret Donnelly had beaten
44:12and coerced her husband,
44:14taking complete control of his life and their children.
44:18It was the years of degradation and abuse
44:21that led directly to his physical collapse.
44:25When he contracted pneumonia,
44:27his life was on the line.
44:30Not because of the illness,
44:32but because of his wife.
44:37It might be easy to assume
44:39that the most shocking element of this case
44:42is that the offender is a woman.
44:44We're perhaps very used to domestic violence
44:47being committed by men.
44:49But men are victims of domestic violence far too often.
44:54And what this case shows
44:55is that this is a very real problem
44:57that needs to be addressed,
44:59regardless of the genders of the people involved.
45:02Hanegret Donnelly will not be eligible for parole
45:06until 2034.
45:09Safeguards are now in place
45:12for the couple's four children.
45:15Hanegret Donnelly wasn't convicted
45:18of murdering her husband
45:21because of a single blow.
45:23She was convicted of murdering Christopher Donnelly
45:26after years of prolonged
45:29and systematic physical abuse.
45:34You know, there are already
45:36a number of pressures
45:37to keep the victims of domestic abuse silent.
45:42And I think we have to acknowledge
45:44through this case
45:45and through other cases which are similar
45:48that there are equal,
45:50if not greater, pressures
45:52on men who are suffering domestic abuse
45:55to keep silent too.
45:57Good afternoon.
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