Rapper jailed for the death of Taggart girl must wait for appeal result
Michie family watch online as killer attempts to overturn his conviction
A RAPPER jailed for the manslaughter of Scots actor John Michie’s daughter will have to wait to discover if he has won an appeal against his conviction.
Louella Fletcher-Michie died after taking the hallucinogenic drug 2-CP during the Bestival music festival, at Lulworth Castle, Dorset, in September 2017.
She was found dead in the early hours of September 11, the day she should have celebrated her 25th birthday, in a wooded area on the edge of the festival site.
Jurors found her boyfriend Ceon Broughton, 31, of Enfield, north London, guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence. He had also supplied
Louella with 2-CP.
Broughton was handed an eight-anda-half year sentence in March 2019, following a trial at Winchester Crown Court.
Three appeal judges yesterday considered the case at a virtual Court of Appeal hearing. But Lord Burnett, the Lord Chief Justice and most senior judge in England and Wales, Mr Justice Sweeney and Mr Justice Murray said they would announce their decision at a later date. Lawyers representing Broughton claimed that he had been wrongly convicted and said that, in any event, the sentence was excessive. They argued yesterday that Louella might have died even if Broughton had interevened to help her.
Prosecutors insisted the appeal should be dismissed. They had told jurors that Broughton failed to take “reasonable” steps to seek medical help for Louella because he had been handed a suspended jail term a month earlier and feared the consequences.
Broughton had previously admitted supplying Louella with drugs at the Glastonbury festival, in June 2017, and was in breach of a suspended prison sentence imposed for possessing a lock knife and a Stanley blade.
But Stephen Kamlish QC, who led Broughton’s defence team, questioned at the appeal hearing whether jurors could have been sure that Louella would have lived if she had received appropriate treatment. He told appeal judges that Louella might have taken an “overdose” which “from the outset” was “not repairable, not survivable”.
Kamlish said jurors had to be sure that any “breach of duty” by Broughton was a “substantial” cause of death.
“Could the jury be sure the deceased would not have died anyway?” Kamlish asked. “Evidentially, there are a number of unknowns.”
He added: “The Crown has failed to prove, cannot prove, beyond reasonable doubt that Louella would have survived had she received treatment by a certain point.”
Lord Burnett said the judges wanted to extend their sympathies to Louella’s family, who listened to the hearing online. Her dad Michie, 63, has starred in the likes of Taggart, Cornotion Street, Holby City and Our Girl.
Broughton watched the hearing via videolink from prison.