Scottish soldier guilty of brutal murder
Terrified girl begged officers to stop soldier stalking her... days later he hid in flat and stabbed her
POLICE failed a young woman who was stalked and murdered by her ‘psychopath’ soldier ex-boyfriend, campaigners said last night.
As Lance Corporal Trimaan Dhillon was yesterday jailed for life for killing 24-yearold Alice Ruggles, it emerged officers had repeatedly ignored her pleas for help.
Miss Ruggles twice reported her 26-year-old ex-boyfriend’s campaign of harassment, which involved threats, manipulation and a terrifying visit to her home – but was ‘palmed off’.
She was found with her throat slit ‘from ear to ear’ in the shower at her home on October 12 last year – five days after she last begged police for help. In a harrowing 999 call, the friend who discovered her body said: ‘I knew this was coming. Her ex is a complete psychopath.’
Yesterday Miss Ruggles’ mother Dr Susan Hills said: ‘I’ve been living through an endless nightmare. I’ve failed Alice as a mother. All I want to do is hide away and give up on life.’
Women’s charities said that instead of being protected, Miss Ruggles was ‘victim-blamed’ by officers and ‘made to feel like a burden’. She was angry about the police’s lack of action, telling her sister Emma: ‘They will f ****** respond once he has f ****** stabbed me.’
Dhillon, who graduated from Musselburgh’s Queen Margaret University in 2011, was ordered to serve a minimum of 22 years in jail after a Newcastle Crown Court jury found him guilty in under three hours.
Miss Ruggles, who attended £11,600-a-year Leicester High School for Girls where her mother is head of maths, first contacted the soldier online in October 2015. They met in person in January last year, but the ‘intense’ relationship turned sour when he became manipulative and controlling. Miss Ruggles broke up with Dhillon in the summer after she caught him cheating with a woman he met on the Tinder dating app.
But he was ‘unable to take no for an answer’ and began stalking her. He told her he would kill himself, threatened to publish intimate photos online, and hacked into her Facebook account.
A fortnight before her death, he travelled 120 miles from Glencorse Barracks in Penicuik, Midlothian, to his ex-girlfriend’s flat in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, to leave chocolates and flowers on the windowsill. The visit was accompanied by a deranged voicemail, in which he repeatedly told her he did not want to kill her. Miss Ruggles contacted the police and Dhillon was given a formal harassment warning – but a few days later he sent her a parcel of photos and a pleading letter. She spoke to officers again on October 7, but no action was taken.
Recalling how Miss Ruggles felt let down, her housemate Maxine McGill said:
‘He was threatening to do bad things to her’
‘Alice said she felt palmed off, she was asked the question, “What do you want us to do about it?” She said, “I don’t know, that is why I am calling ... I was told that if anything further happened I was to get in touch”. She said basically it was a waste of time.’
On the afternoon of October 12, Dhillon again drove to his exgirlfriend’s flat. CCTV from the day showed Miss Ruggles smiling as she left work as an office coordinator at Sky in Newcastle.
The soldier broke in through the back window, grabbed a six-inch kitchen knife and, having wrestled her into the shower room, slashed her neck at least six times. At 6ft 1in and 12-and-ahalf stone, the 2 Scots signaller – who went by the name Harry – was nearly a foot taller and three stone heavier than his victim.
He fled and Miss Ruggles’ body was found minutes later by Miss McGill, who made a desperate 999 call. She could be heard shouting: ‘Alice! Alice! Alice! Oh my God, she’s dead, she’s dead.’
She told the operator: ‘I’ve just come back and she’s covered in blood. She’s covered in blood in the bathroom. I cannot look ... please help. I’m so scared.’
Through tears, Miss McGill added: ‘She put in a complaint about her ex ... and they said we’re going to do nothing and now this has happened. Her ex-boyfriend Harry Dhillon. I think it’s definitely him. He was threatening to do bad things to her.’
Dhillon had previously intimidated another ex-partner, becoming the subject of a restraining order for spitting in her face when she broke off their engagement.
Northumbria Police’s failure to protect Miss Ruggles is now being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Polly Neate, chief executive of Women’s Aid, said: ‘This is a worrying snapshot of victim-blaming within the criminal justice system. It is the job of the police to build the case for the victim – not the other way around.
‘The response a woman gets from the police is absolutely critical to whether or not she feels safe enough to go through with a prosecution. Instead, Alice was made to feel like a burden.’
Detective Chief Inspector Lisa Theaker, of Northumbria Police, said at the time no one knew the level of threat that Dhillon posed.
‘Alice didn’t fully understand his level of behaviour and the stalking and the lengths of behaviour he was going to,’ she added. ‘The family and friends won’t have fully understood it either. We went through a risk assessment. We would not have been able to predict at that stage that he would go on to murder Alice.’