Mum’s suicide after losing children over false sex claims
A HEARTBROKEN mother-of-four killed herself after she lost custody of her children while fighting wrongful claims she had sex with an underage boy.
Even after she was cleared of all charges by a jury, Sheila Griffin still had to fight the children’s father for access.
Yesterday an inquest heard how the 36-year-old was found dead in bed last year having taken a cocktail of prescribed medication.
Mrs Griffin had been driven to despair by the false charges and the resulting difficulties in seeing her children.
The support worker, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, suffered from clinical depression and had taken four overdoses in the year before her death.
Despite a jury finding her innocent of all charges in 2014 – two years after the allegations were made – her children, who had moved in with their father in Edinburgh under a ‘temporary arrangement’, were not returned to her as they were ‘settled’.
In the run up to her death on October 15, Mrs Griffin complained of being let down by the system. Her family also told the inquest her ex-husband had made it ‘really hard’ for her to maintain contact with their children.
Two days before the tragedy, she had tried to arrange a visit to see them by text. She had earlier been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, saying she had ‘to get help to face her demons’.
The inquest in Heywood heard Mrs Griffin was a ‘good mum and a lovely person’. She was with exhusband Chris for 18 years, having met him when she was just 14.
But after they split up, she was accused of sexual activity with a child in 2012.
Ten days before her death she had moved in with her grandmother Sheila Noakes, following a stint in a mental health unit at Birch Hill Hospital.
Mrs Noakes told the inquest: ‘In 2012 allegations were made against Sheila for criminal activity...As a result of Chris getting custody Sheila began to drink more and take painkillers.
‘After that Sheila had difficulties maintaining contact with the children. Chris made it really hard for her. The most obvious trigger was when she had contact with her exhusband and she would go on a real downer.’
Dr David Rimmer, a consultant psychiatrist at Birch Hill, told the inquest Mrs Griffin’s drinking and painkiller addiction, combined with her reluctance to talk about the case, made it difficult to treat her. ‘There’s only so much mental health services can do,’ he said.
‘She didn’t like talking about it in a way that possibly some form of counselling might have helped.’
Assistant coroner Peter Sigee recorded a verdict of suicide. Mrs Griffin’s family did not wish to comment after the hearing.
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