All language subtitles for murder.uk.s03e02.1080p.web.h264-cbfm_track3_[eng]

(suspenseful music)

I'm David Wilson,
emeritus professor of criminology.

And for over 30 years,
I've investigated

the phenomenon of murder
and what it is that might

motivate someone to kill.

Every murder case is different.

But time and again,
a deadly pattern emerges

of warning signs and red flags.

In this new series, I investigate
some of the UK's

most harrowing murder cases
to understand how and why

these terrible crimes occur.

This is Murder UK.

(gulls squawking)

(soft music)

(Julie Aunger) Growing up,
Katie and I were incredibly close.

I think, as a young child,
she was the one

left at home while her bigger
sisters went to school.

She was the only
blond, blue-eyed one.

She was absolutely
spoiled rotten by everybody.

Katie was very angelic,
very sweet,

a lot of fun, very giggly.

Yeah, just a really sweet
little girl...baby of the family.

(Emma Wilding)
Katie and I were very close.

Our older sisters were
sort of very outgoing,

and we were quite shy
and reserved.

And that kind of built
a bond between us,

that we would stick together.

Katie was very shy as a child,
but just beautiful.

She always had a smile
on her face.

And as she grew up
and became more confident,

she just became the life
and soul of the party.

(Julie) Katie had lots
and lots of friends.

She was very popular.

And she was very easy-going,
very giggly.

She liked to laugh.

She liked to get up to mischief.

(Emma) Katie left school at 15,

and she'd been doing hairdressing
on a Saturday

as a job and just
absolutely loved it.

So she decided
to become a hairdresser

and won many awards as well.

She was a really
fantastic hairdresser.

(suspenseful music)

By spring 2015,
Katie Wilding, now age 19

and having done some travelling,

returns home from a trip
to Australia.

(Julie) You can appreciate that
after four or five months away,

moving back in
with the old people, um,

wasn't really what
she was looking for.

So we managed to find her a nice
little flat just off the seafront.

It wasn't a huge flat, so it
didn't take a lot of tidying.

But I think she enjoyed
having her independence.

Katie had had boyfriends
but no serious relationships.

She was enjoying her life
too much, I think.

(David Wilson) Within just
a few weeks of her return,

Katie meets someone new...

Mitchell Richardson.

Katie told me one day when we met
that she had gone for lunch

at a sandwich bar with a friend.

And this guy had come over
to her and said that he would

really like to get to know her.

(Julie) Mitchell's first words
to Katie were,

"I've been watching you."

Katie was very flattered
by that at this point.

When she told me about it,
I was a little bit concerned...

not overly concerned,
but it did seem a little intense.

Katie was 19.

Mitchell was 31 when they met.

She was very excited when
she was describing Mitchell.

She said he was tall,
he was dark, and he was handsome.

It was the old, old cliche
going here.

But she was excited.

She said he was a proper man
rather than a boy.

That's what I think
she felt quite frustrated

with chaps of her own age, that she
felt she was more mature than that.

So she was very excited.

He had a BMW car.

I think, at 19, she was a little
bit, oh, this is quite nice,

to be treated, to be spoilt.

He took her to some very
nice restaurants, initially.

He bought her a new mobile phone.

He was really spoiling her.

And I don't think
that's something she'd had

from previous relationships before.

(Emma) The first time I met
Mitchell was around Katie's flat.

And at first,
he was very pleasurable.

But he almost tried too hard.

It was quite intense.

And Katie was learning
to drive at the time,

so we went out for a drive
to a local car park

so she could practise.

And quite quickly, I became
a little bit uncomfortable

because of the way
he spoke to her.

He was very controlling.

He put her down quite a lot
about the way she drove.

And I just didn't like
his attitude

towards her at that point.

And he was already displaying
controlling behaviour.

(David) What's interesting
is that very early on,

we see the move
from love-bombing Katie

to establishing the elements
of coercive control.

Richardson's quite
clearly beginning

to see what the boundaries are,
how dependent he can make Katie.

We see that in particular
with the so-called driving lessons

in the car park, where he's not
really giving her driving lessons.

He's putting her down.

This is a way of belittling her,

of establishing
her dependence on him.

A few weeks into the relationship,
Emma visits Katie again

at the flat the family
had helped her find.

(Emma) I went round to help her
build some furniture.

And I realised that
throughout the flat,

there was a lot of things
that weren't hers,

and it was very much in a mess,
which for some...in some ways,

was very unlike Katie.

And she told me at that point that
Mitchell had moved in with her.

(Julie) Mitchell came
to Katie and said

that he was being evicted
from his home

and asked if he could move in with
her just as a short-term measure

until he could find
somewhere else to live.

(David) Katie is now
living with a man

she's known only for a few weeks.

Her family watch
with growing apprehension,

feeling that things
are moving far too quickly.

(Julie) We were very concerned.

We didn't know who this man was.

We knew he was a little bit older.

We didn't know anything about
his family or his friends.

So yes, we were quite
concerned at this point

that we hadn't actually met him.

(suspenseful music)

(Emma) His words at the time were
he was being evicted from his flat

for not being able
to pay the rent.

But we soon found out that there
was a lot more to it than that.

(Julie)
When he moved in with her,

Katie found out that
he had violence in his past

because he had to tell her
that he had a tag on his leg,

which was given to him
by the courts.

This was for violence
against another man,

which Mitchell had claimed
was in self-defence.

But Katie believed that he'd
been misrepresented at court,

that he'd been
misunderstood by the judge,

that nobody had listened to him.

And she didn't believe him
to be violent.

She said she trusted him.

(apprehensive music)

It was a few weeks after
they'd been living together

that we saw a change in Katie.

Katie was working
at my friend's hair salon.

And my friend phoned me and said,

Katie has been coming in
in the last few mornings in tears.

She's...she's upset about something.

And this particular day,
about two to three weeks

after they'd been living together,

Mitchell walked
into the hair salon...

And started shouting at Katie
in front of everybody.

And he spat at her.

Mitchell threw a set of keys
into Katie's face,

which caught her here, and left.

Katie was absolutely devastated.

When my friend, the owner
of the salon, was talking to her

and calming her down, she said
that it was entirely her fault

because she drank the last
of the milk that morning

and hadn't left him
any milk for coffee,

and that's why he was angry.

(David) Richardson's very
public argument with Katie,

he's not ashamed by that, because
it's done very deliberately.

And by doing this deliberately,

a number of psychological
advantages accrue to him.

Katie is seen as his property,
but it also serves to humiliate

Katie in a public setting.

And that humiliation
further serves to emphasise

the power dynamic
within the relationship

and her dependency on Richardson.

It's a subtle form
of self-blaming.

It's an acceptance that
she must be in the wrong

even when she's not.

(Julie) I was devastated.

This was my baby.

I wanted to challenge Mitchell,
but Katie asked me not to.

She said it was okay.
She dealt with it.

He'd apologised,
and they'd moved on.

Katie was signed off work
very soon after that

with anxiety and depression.

A few weeks later,
Mitchell and Katie

are spotted
by her mum's friend Sue

and her husband
in Torquay Harbour.

(Sue Carpenter) A car pulled
into the loading bay,

and Katie and Mitchell
got out of the car.

And they started to walk
back towards the bars

and the restaurants.

And another car pulled up
right behind Richard's car

and caused his car alarm to
start going off, at which point

he completely lost his temper
and started screaming and shouting

at the gentleman in the car behind

and was getting very animated
and shouting and screaming at him.

And Katie tried to calm him down.

And then he started
shouting at her also.

And he got into the car
and sped off.

It was a very shocking incident
to see and made me feel

very uncomfortable
and very worried for her.

It was the quickness with which
he lost his temper over nothing.

My husband was very shocked
by what he saw.

And he said to me that

if he was talking to her
like this in public,

then what was he talking to her
like in private?

How was he treating her
behind closed doors?

(David) Sue immediately informed
Katie's family about the incident.

(Emma) This is the
point where I started

to see the change in my sister
from being that bubbly, happy,

sort of outgoing person
to becoming very withdrawn

and...and hiding things from us.

Katie left her job.

She went to the doctors
and was signed off

with anxiety and depression.

And that started her on a spiral.

(Emma) Very quickly into
the relationship,

Mitchell cut her off
from her friends.

And I think that was for control.

(Julie) Katie would
tell us that Mitchell

was adamant that her friends
were trying to split them up.

He would tell her,
your friends don't like me.

Your friends are
telling lies about me

because they don't
like us together.

They're jealous of our time.

They're jealous of our love,
of our mature relationship.

Slowly but gradually, she lost
touch with all of her friends.

(David) Richardson can be seen
as following

almost a classic playbook
of coercive control.

She becomes further isolated.

She's no longer in touch
with her family in the way

that she once had been.

And this serves
to create a dependency

even further on Richardson.

She is totally dependent
on the person

who is actually abusing her.

A year into the relationship,
Katie is

completely isolated
from her friends,

living alone
with an abusive boyfriend.

And now she's set to lose
the home that she and her mother

had found together.

Katie was evicted from her flat...

Because Mitchell had started
to smash the flat.

Neighbours were starting
to complain to the landlords

that there was screaming, there was
shouting coming from the flat.

So all at the same time, she lost
her job, she lost her flat.

And she definitely started to
withdraw from us, from her family.

(David) In their increasingly
fractious relationship,

a worrying new ingredient
is spotted in the mix.

(Emma) I became aware
that Mitchell took drugs.

There were drugs
all over the house.

He quite openly offered me drugs
many, many times.

He would...in fact,
he would boast about the drugs

that he had in the flat.

And he would often
offer them to Katie.

Katie would say that
she didn't want to take any,

but he would then
laugh in her face

and just really humiliate her
for not wanting to take them.

The drugs made him
extremely paranoid.

So from the beginning of the
night, where he would very much

be the gracious host, you know,
offering drinks, playing games,

and then as soon as
the drugs came out,

he would become paranoid and angry

and try and control everybody
in the room.

He would humiliate Katie.

He would call her names.

He would spit at her,
and all because she didn't

want to take the drugs with him.

(Julie) The minute the drink or the
drugs or the combination started,

he would become very aggressive.
He became very paranoid.

He'd check her phone three,
four, five times a day.

He would always say,
are you wearing that?

What's that for?
Who are you going to see?

He accused her
of sleeping with his friends.

Always, he was paranoid,
absolutely paranoid.

(David) With Mitchell's
paranoia intensifying,

the family fear his control
over Katie's every move

is becoming absolute.

(Emma) Mitchell would
control her money.

He would control
what she was allowed to wear,

whether she could shave her legs,
whether she could buy new clothes,

whether she was allowed
to drive her car.

If she stepped out of line,
he would do things

like cancel her car insurance
or smash her phone

so that
she couldn't contact anybody.

(David)
And Mitchell insists on knowing

his girlfriend's location
24 hours a day.

(Julie) He put a tracker
on her phone.

And he sold this idea
to Katie so that

he would know that she was safe.

(David) Despite the tracker,
Mitchell's paranoia persisted.

He continues to suspect
Katie is cheating on him.

Mitchell then lost his job

because he was coming home to check
where she was all of the time.

(David) When Richardson
loses his job,

Katie actually becomes
Richardson's sole priority.

That allows him
to dominate and control 24/7.

When a person like Richardson
forms this level

of controlling obsession,
the relationship with Katie

is only ever going to go
in one direction.

(Julie) My husband
and I quite often

talked about kidnapping her,
taking her away,

breaking that mind control.

But that would have been...we would
have been making her choose.

And to make her choose between
him and her, we would have lost.

As hard as this is to say, it was
better to allow her to choose

to go back to him, knowing that
she'd be back a few days later,

than to risk saying,
you have to choose, Katie.

We would never have seen her.

I wanted to keep
some form of contact with her.

(David) Just over a year
after meeting Mitchell,

having suffered months
of isolation and abuse,

Katie finally tells her sister
the painful reason

why she hasn't ended
the relationship.

(Emma) During one night when
I was around for a party

and he'd flipped out,
I managed to get her on her own

for about two minutes.

And she broke down, and she
told me she was afraid of him

and that she didn't know
how to get away from him.

And when I asked her why
she'd never told me this before,

she said that she was
trying to protect me.

And I told her it was
my job to protect her.

(suspenseful music)

Mitchell took Katie to Egypt
for her 21st birthday.

And Katie was very, very excited.

(Julie) I think she was
looking forward to the holiday

because she thought he would relax.

And when he was relaxed,
they got on,

or, you know,
the relationship was easier.

(David) It may have been
a change of scene,

but it was the same old story.

(Julie) That evening when they
arrived on her 21st birthday,

in front of other guests
at the hotel,

he punched her in the face
and gave her a black eye.

She spent the majority of the
holiday with thick makeup on,

trying to cover a black eye.

Again, she said that she'd moved.

He hadn't meant to hit her.

That was...that was a usual excuse.

He was aiming for the wall,
and she got in the way.

(Emma) And then after that,
the violence

seemed to get worse and worse.

On the evening
of the 8th of October,

Mitchell finds her dress
in Katie's bag,

which he thinks is nightwear,

making him wrongly suspect
that she's cheating.

He's angry, and his use
of alcohol and drugs

is about to make
for a dangerous cocktail.

(Julie) He started to drink,
and he started to take tablets.

He took a quantity of Valium, drank
a lot of a bottle of Jack Daniels,

threatening to throw himself
off the balcony if she left.

(David)
Fuelled by alcohol and drugs,

this dangerous cocktail results
in a violent,

unprovoked attack on Katie.

(Julie) It was in the early hours
of the morning that the neighbours

called the police because they
said for the first time,

they were frightened
for Katie's life.

And he was arrested
and taken into police custody.

(Emma) My mum actually informed me
of what had happened.

And I...I was devastated and angry
and all of the emotions,

really, because I felt like,
you know, she was my baby sister.

And I wanted to protect her,
and I couldn't.

So yeah, it was
really heartbreaking.

(David)
During his police interview,

Richardson refuses to cooperate.

(David) Crucial to the police
case against Richardson

was any evidence
Katie could offer.

However, despite the brutality
of the attack,

she decided not to take
the matter any further.

(Emma) I believe she didn't
make any formal complaint

against him mostly out of fear.

At this point, you know,
he was almost all she had.

Or that's how she...
that's how he made her believe.

I still believe, at this point,
she loved him and believed

that he would change for her.

And I still believe,
at this point,

she had hoped he would change.

(David)
During his police interview,

Richardson refuses to cooperate.

But whilst Richardson
is in custody,

Katie seizes the opportunity
and decides

to move out of their shared flat
and into her own place.

(Julie) I can't begin to tell you
how amazing it was to think

that she was finally...
her decision,

not being forced
into it by anybody...

she was making the decision
to leave.

It was incredible.

And it was going to be fantastic
and the start of a whole new life.

(Emma) So when Katie first
moved into her new flat,

it was kept a secret so that
it was very much a safe house.

And a panic alarm
was fitted at the flat.

And Katie did seem happier.

She did start
seeing friends again.

She started messaging a bit more.

And she was looking for work and
just really looking to the future.

(David)
Mitchell Richardson is released

on bail with one condition.

He mustn't contact
Katie or her family.

But will he comply?

And more importantly,
is Katie now safe?

(Julie) He was released.

And within hours,
he was on the phone to Katie,

demanding to know where she was.

So she blocked his number.

And he immediately
started to phone me.

And he was desperate for
information about where she was.

I said to him that I was
really quite worried about her.

If he stopped all of this
and he got help,

then she might come back
because I said, she loves you.

She loves you.

But he laughed, and he said
that she would come back anyway.

I said I was worried.

You know, I said,
I'm frightened for you...

for Katie, of you.

And he laughed and said,
well, you're probably right.

It was a horrible conversation.

And one of the last things
he said to me before I ended

the conversation was,
well, you know,

I could easily kill her with drugs,
and you'd never prove it.

I truly believed
he was going to kill her.

(gulls squawking)

(David) Mitchell Richardson
has breached his bail conditions

by contacting Katie.

Her mother alerts the police and
demands they find her daughter,

but neither Katie nor Mitchell
can be located.

(Julie) I tried all morning
to get hold of Katie,

and her phone was switched off.

So eventually, I tried Mitchell.

His phone was switched off.

Been to the flat...nobody there.

So I went early
to the police station

and told them that
I was genuinely worried.

I got a call from my mum to say
that they were both missing.

And I was actually at uni
at the time, so I left uni.

And we all went out
searching for her.

(David) For 48 gruelling hours,
the search continues.

(Julie) Everybody...the police,
as well...were out looking for them.

Couldn't find them.

And I was convinced that
something terrible had happened.

(suspenseful music)

(David) Five days after
Richardson is released on bail,

the police receive
shocking information

suggesting he's holding Katie
hostage in his flat.

(Julie) When the police
forced the door open,

Mitchell had heard them as well.

And he just sat in an armchair...
it was a tiny little room...

waiting.

Katie was on the bed, on the
pillows, sort of all crunched up.

And they arrested him
and took him away.

He'd held her there all night,
beating her black and blue.

And when I got there,
I barely recognised my own child...

lots of bruises.

So the police officer said to her,
Katie, we really need you

to give some evidence to stop this.

So that's what we did.

We took her straight
to the police station.

I've never, ever been so proud
of her as I was on that day.

And she was very
brave enough to decide

to do a video statement of what
had happened the night before.

(Julie) She looks
so young and vulnerable.

You can tell she's nervous.

But yes, it's...it's emotional,
seeing her so vulnerable.

(soft music)

(David) Katie tells the police
that, once inside her flat,

Richardson began
accusing her of cheating

and became increasingly angry.

(Julie) She thought he could do it.

Sorry, that's really hard to hear.

(Julie) It's just
really horrible to think

that this 33-year-old man could
do that to my 21-year-old child.

(Julie) It's heartbreaking
hearing her little voice telling

of this beatings and of how he
controlled her and how he told her

he was going to kill her.

And again, she's asking him to go,
and he's just not listening.

Gosh, to see her.

(clears throat)
Sorry.

(David) Richardson's threats
don't stop there.

She's scared that
he's going to come and hurt me

while she's being strangled.

(grim music)

She wasn't...still wasn't
thinking of herself, was she?

(Emma) If they hadn't
arrived when they had,

Katie would have been dead.

(David) During the interview,
the police focused

their questioning on Katie's
relationship with Richardson.

(exhales sharply)

Sorry, I have no words for that.

And to hit her to teach her
a lesson, not just once

but over and over,
what sort of man does that?

(David) When Richardson states
that he's hitting Katie

to teach her a lesson,
I think you've got the essence

of what their relationship
was actually like.

It's about master and servant.

There's a sense of the
sadomasochism in terms of what

their relationship had become,
because, of course,

what he's trying to do
is create somebody who's

totally obedient to whatever it is
that he would like to happen.

And of course, that's not
about a true relationship.

That's about him exercising
total domination, total control.

(Julie) She's right.

I've seen him switch from
towering over me, raging, to...

it was almost like a light bulb,
and it would switch off.

He was very much a Jekyll and Hyde.

I knew that even though
she loved him and this was

probably the most hardest thing
she'd ever done,

but she was so brave to
speak out and tell the truth

and just be honest about
what was really going on.

(David) Just a few hours later,
Richardson was brought in

for questioning by detectives.

(Julie) He's beaten her.
He's held her overnight.

He's tortured her.
He strangled her.

He's cut her lip.

And there is no remorse.

All he's thinking
about there is himself.

I haven't heard one thing
where he said, I'm sorry.

I know I've done wrong.

How is she?

There's no concern
about Katie whatsoever.

(suspenseful music)

In court, Richardson
pleads guilty to criminal damage,

resisting arrest,
and two counts of assault.

He's due to be sentenced
six weeks later.

But despite previously
breaching his bail conditions,

he is again released on bail.

I was always worried that Mitchell
would have a hold over her.

But he had a sentence
hearing not long after,

and he was going to prison.

And so I believed that if we could
keep her safe until that point,

then, after that, we could
help her rebuild her life,

and she would be happy again.

(Sue) Julie was very concerned
for Katie, very concerned.

She said to me, I'm so worried
he's going to kill her.

And it was one of those
throwaway comments,

but you didn't actually think
that anything would happen.

(David) I don't think there's any
way that this can be sugar-coated,

but the decision
to grant Richardson bail

is a major, a catastrophic error

of judicial judgement.

When one looks at that film
of him talking,

he is just filled with self-pity.

There is absolutely
no remorse there.

And rather than think through

what we know he had been doing
to Katie,

it seemed to me that
Richardson was able to convince

the authorities of a narrative

that he was
carefully constructing.

And of course,
by granting him bail,

it is merely opening the door
to him using lethal violence.

(Julie) After he'd been
released on bail from the court,

we believe that there was a time
that they weren't in touch,

and Katie was back
to her...or building herself

back to her usual self.

She was starting
to come back to us.

It was absolutely lovely
to see that.

(David) But after a few weeks,
Katie suddenly

stopped taking her mum's calls.

It's a deeply worrying
development for the family.

Had Richardson forced his way
back into her life?

I sent her a message to say,
I am starting to get worried.

We haven't heard properly,
haven't seen you for a few days.

Can we meet?

Yep, yep. We'll definitely meet.

Definitely meet.

And she cancelled that one.

She kept assuring me she was safe.

So we got to Em's birthday
on the 14th,

and she'd still been in touch,
but just very small,

quick text messages.

And I spoke to Emma,
and Emma hadn't heard from her.

And that's when,
a quarter past 7:00 that evening,

the police knocked on the door.

And I don't really remember
a great deal after that.

I remember bits until Andy
picked me up off the floor.

And I remember
I could hear this noise.

And I've heard people say it
before, and I thought, stupid.

I could hear this noise.

It was like a howling,
and it was me.

And he picked me up off the floor.

And the policeman left.

(grim music)

All we were told on that night
was that Katie and Mitchell

had been found both dead.

(Emma) So this one police officer,
he put his arm out to stop me

from entering the flat.

And I just cried and said,
is it my sister?

Is it my sister?

And his only answer
at that point was,

you need to leave
because we're about to bring

their dead bodies out.

Hearing those words just
absolutely broke me.

I can't even begin to explain
the pain that I felt...

I'm sorry, I'm going to
get emotional now...

but also the guilt that I felt
because she was my baby sister,

and I was supposed to protect her.

And I...I promised her
that I would look after her

and that nothing bad
would happen to her.

And knowing that I couldn't keep
that promise has always just hurt.

(Sue) Katie did leave him.
Eventually, she left him.

She did all the right things.

She...she got her own place.

She got panic alarms.

She did everything that
she should have done correctly.

But still, somehow,
he managed to get to her.

Very soon afterwards
we were told that this was...

it was drugs overdose.

And when I asked about,
what about the domestic violence?

What about the threats to kill?

What about all of that?

They said to me, Julie, it's drugs.

That's...that's it.
That's the end of it.

That's what it is. It's drugs.

They did an investigation,
but they did an investigation

based on the fact that it was
the drugs that killed my daughter.

(gulls squawking)

What was put on social media
about Katie and Mitchell

was that it had been
a "Romeo and Juliet" scenario,

where they had
been told by the police

that they had to stay apart.

Mitchell was on bail.

They weren't allowed
to spend time together.

So they decided, in their wisdom,
to take their own lives.

Can you imagine
how that...how that felt?

How my daughters felt, knowing the
extent of how much he'd beaten her,

how much he'd hurt her,
how brave it was of her

to leave in the first place?

It was heartbreaking.

(Emma) There's never been one point
that I've ever felt

that it was a suicide pact
or that she chose to die with him.

Knowing my sister my whole life,

it's just never something
that she would do.

(David) We've got to remember that
this young woman had shown bravery

in terms of reporting what
had happened to her

when she was in a relationship
with Mitchell.

It denies her agency in terms of
planning for the rest of her life.

It denies the fact that she had
to be moved into a safe house.

So the idea that somehow
she would then take her own life

with Mitchell because of
her undying love to him

denies everything that
we know about domestic abuse.

(suspenseful music)

(Julie) Just a few weeks earlier,
he had threatened to kill her

with drugs
and we would never prove it.

And a few weeks later,
they're both found

side by side in the exact manner
that he told me he would do it.

In Katie's own interview
with her own words,

tells how Mitchell has
told her he will kill her.

I thought I was
going to die, basically.

And I thought he could do it.

I don't believe in coincidences.

(David) The critical
piece of evidence here

is Mitchell's specific threat
to Julie that,

I could kill her by using drugs,

and you'd never be able
to prove it.

And of course, that's exactly
the circumstances in which

his body and the body of Katie
is found.

So this is him enacting
a plan to murder.

This is premeditated.

This is evidence that this was not
some kind of pact

between Romeo and Juliet,
but, in fact, an abuser

using lethal violence
to gain control over his victim.

A coroner holds a joint inquest,
concluding that

both Katie and Mitchell
died from an overdose

of cocaine and morphine.

Crucially, the coroner
is unable to determine

how and why they took the drugs.

Katie's family immediately
begins a campaign

demanding
a domestic homicide review.

(Emma) So the domestic
homicide review

is when agencies come together
to review what happened

up until the point of death, to
see whether lessons can be learned

and to see what went wrong
and to make

recommendations for the future.

(David) Such a review
can only take place

when a death appears to have
resulted from violence, abuse,

or neglect by someone in
an intimate personal relationship

with the deceased.

This is part
of the justice system.

Over the next two years,
the family's request

for a domestic homicide review
is rejected three times.

It was extremely difficult
to get a domestic homicide review

because at the time,
they didn't see it as a murder

and therefore told us
that we didn't fit the criteria.

(David) But in December 2020,
a domestic homicide review

is finally granted.

(hopeful music)

It just meant that, finally,
people were acknowledging

that Katie died and had been
a victim of domestic abuse.

That might not have caused her
actual, physical heart to stop,

but she was a victim
of domestic abuse.

(David) Katie's family were
left waiting for the outcome

of the review into her case.

(Sue) It was getting
somebody, the authorities,

to recognise that this hadn't
simply been a drug death,

that this was something...
there was something more to this,

and that it warranted
being looked into.

(Julie) My theory on Katie's death
is that

Mitchell knew he had
lost control of her.

She'd left him.

And I think that in the last week
or two before her death,

he started to woo her again

and started to get
to see her again.

And I believe he planned
to take my daughter's life

and to kill himself.

(Emma) He was due to be sentenced
only a couple of weeks later.

And knowing his
previous criminal record

for violence
against both men and women,

he was going to go to prison
for a long time.

And I believe he decided that
he would rather die

and take her with him
than face prison.

(sombre music)

(Julie) I come back here
because this is the place

that we sent Katie to the stars.

She was too young to go into a box
in a dark hole in the ground.

So we put her ashes into fireworks

and sent them off
from the headland here

so she'll travel the world
around in the sea.

I bring these flowers because
they're called baby's breath.

Katie was my baby,
so these flowers are for her.

Katie dying will never...
there'll never be a reason.

It'll never be a good thing.

But if we tell her story
and one woman listens and gets out,

that's a legacy.

And that means that she'll live on.

There is a pattern
for women out there.

And if we can only recognise it,

I think we could intervene
much sooner.

And if I had been aware
of this and been able

to pick up the signs, then maybe
we could have intervened.

I've said it over and over.

She was 21, beautiful, young,
loved, good job, hard working.

If it can happen to Katie,
it can happen to anybody.

(Emma) I miss everything
about my little sister.

She really was my best friend.

I feel like she lost her life
far too early,

and she had so much
to give in this world.

And there were so many things
that she still wanted to do.

And knowing she'll never get the
chance to do that,

just...yeah, it's really sad.

She was just on the cusp of
adulthood and all the things

that, you know,
we've all experienced.

And she'll never have that.

She'll never get married.
She'll never have children.

She'll never have that.

It's all just been taken off her.

Do I hate Mitchell?

No, because I'm not going to waste
that amount of energy on him.

But I do hate what...

what he did to my daughter
when she was alive.

Do I think Katie would still be
alive if she hadn't met Mitchell?

Yes, absolutely.

I wish more than anything
that I could turn back time

and stop that initial meeting

because then I'd still have
my baby sister here.

(David) Katie's family
had to wait for seven years

before the domestic homicide
review was completed in 2023.

And that DHR,
Domestic Homicide Review,

was reviewed
by the home office in 2024.

And what did it demonstrate?

It demonstrated that Katie
faced severe domestic abuse

from Richardson
and that time after time,

the authorities missed
the warning signs

that might have saved her life.

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