Fury of Caroline Flack’s mum over star’s ‘show trial’ death
As it’s revealed prosecutors wanted to drop assault case against TV star but police insisted it go ahead...
CAROLINE Flack’s mother yesterday blamed her death on the threat of a ‘show trial’ as it emerged that prosecutors initially wanted to drop an assault charge against her.
Lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service ruled the TV host should get a formal caution and not face trial – but changed their minds after police appealed against the decision.
Love Island presenter Miss Flack, 40, is believed to have killed herself in February this year just two days after the final decision that she would have to stand trial.
Her family told an inquest yesterday that she was tormented by the spectre of a ‘show trial’ at which she would be portrayed as an abuser who had assaulted her boyfriend Lewis Burton, 27.
Grieving mother Christine Flack said the troubled star was ‘seriously let down’ by the authorities and particularly by the CPS. The case prompted public anger over the decision to go ahead despite Miss Flack’s mental fragility after Mr Burton told officials the alleged assault was an accident and asked for the charge to be dropped. The inquest heard Miss Flack self-harmed on the night of her arrest and was taken for psychiatric tests but was deemed to be at low risk of suicide.
Friends said the 2014 Strictly Come Dancing winner battled long-term anxiety and depression – and attempted suicide three times in the three months before her eventual death in February.
They told the inquest that the presenter was scared she would go to prison. She also feared she would be unable to find future television work and her public image would be that of an ‘abuser’.
Miss Flack denied the assault but told friends she would rather be jailed than have her private life forensically examined.
She was found hanged at her home in Stoke Newington, north- east London, despite earlier attempts by friends to get her to seek medical help.
Her grieving mother said the death was ‘completely unnecessary’. Mrs Flack said: ‘I believe she was seriously let down by the authorities, in particular by the CPS in pursuing a case. I believe this was a show trial.
‘I feel that the prosecutor was unkind to Caroline and to my family. I was threatened with arrest when I tried to speak to her.
‘I don’t think that she should have had special treatment because she was famous, but equally she shouldn’t have been treated differently. She was vulnerable.’
Lisa Ramsarran, a deputy chief prosecutor at the CPS, said that lawyers initially ruled there was enough evidence for Miss Flack to be charged with causing actual bodily harm but it was not in the public interest to prosecute her. They said she should receive a police caution instead but the Metropolitan Police appealed.
A subsequent review led to Miss Flack being charged with assault by beating. The case was reviewed a further six times and Miss Flack’s lawyers were told in February that she would face trial. She was found dead at her home two days later.
THREE OVERDOSES
The inquest was told Miss Flack took three drug overdoses in the three months before her death. Her twin sister Jody said she had overdosed in December – the day before her first appearance in court for assault – after drinking heavily.
Jody Flack said: ‘ I believe the shame of what the charge became against her was too much to deal with. Her life and reputation were falling apart...because of a false accusation.’ She added: ‘Her punishment did not fit the crime. At the very least she was being made a spectacle of nationally.’ Friends described another drugs overdose the night before her eventual death and said they were aware of at least three suicide attempts in total.
PLEASE TAKE HER
Friends found Miss Flack barely conscious the night before she died and begged paramedics to take her to hospital. She sent close friend Mollie Grosberg a text saying: ‘I’m killing myself and you don’t know where I am.’
Miss Grosberg called an ambulance to the flat and found ‘tablets everywhere’ – and Miss Flack ‘talking gibberish’. She told the inquest that she and another close friend, Louise Teasdale, begged paramedics to take her to hospital. She said: ‘We were saying, “Please can you take her”. Caroline was saying she didn’t want to go, but she was incoherent.’
Paramedics said they asked Miss Flack if she had attempted suicide but she responded that she only took tablets to try to sleep. Ambulance worker Tony Rumore said they had recommended she go to hospital but could not force her against her will.
She could not be detained under the Mental Health Act because she was coherent and in her own home, he said. The friends stayed with Miss Flack through the night and left the following morning just hours before her sister Jody was due to arrive.
BATTLE TO SAVE TWIN
Jody Flack fought to revive her twin sister after finding her body inside the flat on February 15. She and Louise Teasdale’s father Stephen started giving CPR (chest compressions) in an attempt to revive her before 999 staff arrived.
A post-mortem examination concluded she had died from hanging. It found she had taken small quantities of sleeping pills and anti-depressants but not alcohol or other drugs.
FINAL MESSAGE
Police who were called to the flat found a note saying: ‘I hope me and Lewis can one day find harmony.’
Miss Flack was banned from contact with Mr Burton, a tennis player and model, after she was charged but the pair remained in a relationship.
She had contacted his mother Caroline Burton in tears, saying she missed him and could not bear to be apart from him. In a statement, Mr Burton said he had not been able to see Miss Flack because of her bail conditions but she had talked of taking her own life.
He said: ‘She was very upset, in fact devastated. She was not in a good place.’ Mr Burton was not among the friends and family who attended the inquest via videolink yesterday.
BLOODSTAINS PHOTO
Miss Flack’s mother said her ‘lovely’ daughter had been horrified to learn that Mr Burton had sent a photo from her assault arrest to an ex-girlfriend. The picture, showing blood
stains on a bed, later appeared on the front page of The Sun and Mrs Flack said it was ‘devastating’ for her daughter.
She told the inquest: ‘ Lewis took the photo of the blood and sent it to his friend. That killed her. That was awful.’ Miss Flack was alleged to have attacked Mr Burton after reading text messages on his phone that suggested ‘infidelity’. She later described it as a ‘lovers’ tiff ’.
Prosecutors claimed that she struck him with a lamp, although he said she had accidentally hit him with a phone, leaving a small cut on his head.
CPS PRESSURE
Prosecutors were warned they needed to improve their handling of domestic violence cases just weeks before Miss Flack was told she would stand trial.
Two official watchdogs told the CPS they needed to do more to bring cases to court even when victims did not want to co-operate.
The CPS’s Miss Ramsarran said cases involving domestic violence allegations were taken ‘particularly seriously’.
She added that guidance stated it would be rare to offer a caution in domestic abuse cases.
Miss Flack’s death prompted an outpouring of sorrow from her celebrity friends and fans. Many quoted one of her social media posts from December in which she urged people to ‘be kind’.
Her apparent suicide was the latest connected to Love Island, following the deaths of contestants Mike Thalassitis, 26, in March 2019 and Sophie Gradon, 32, in June 2018. The inquest continues at Poplar Coroner’s Court in east London.