A Preventable Tragedy: The Murder Of Alice Ruggles

please i've just i've just come back to my flight and the door was alice alice oh my god she's told her she's dead [Music] christmas eve 1991 sue and clive welcomed their daughter alice into the world described by friends and family as a loving and empathetic person outgoing quick-witted and fun 24-year-old alice ruggles was adored by those in her life people that knew her said she had the ability to cheer anyone up and was a natural entertainer she was mischievous funny and loved socialising alice was from a close-knit family and was the third of four children she and her siblings grew up in the quiet rural leicestershire village of turlangton she attended leicester high school for girls and from there went on to northumbria university to study product design alice discovered fencing at the age of 11 and the sport quickly became a big part of her life she went on to represent her home county of leicestershire and the east midlands region numerous times at northumbria university alice became the fencing club captain and went on to win the women's epee at the leeds open in 2012. alice fell in love with the city of newcastle and carried on living there after she graduated she got a job at skye's newscastle hub and it wasn't long before her hard-working attitude paid off and she was promoted to site coordinator in october 2015 alice started talking to tramaan dylan german known to everyone as harry was a lance corporal based at glencourse barracks in edinburgh scotland and was training to join the special reconnaissance regiment at the time he and alice connected he was serving in afghanistan and the pair started talking over facebook in january 2016 the couple met in person for the first time and initially the relationship appeared to be going well 26 year old dylan was caring attentive and considerate and friends said alice seemed besotted he and alice spent a couple of weeks together in newcastle and then in edinburgh before he returned to afghanistan for his final two-month tour of duty dylan returned to the uk in april and in july alice invited him on the family's annual holiday where the pair were inseparable however this would not last and it wasn't long before the cracks began appearing in the couple's short relationship people in alice's life started to notice some concerning changes in her once outgoing and someone that loved any chance to socialize alice was becoming distant and withdrawn dylan was becoming more and more critical of her in every way so much so that it drove alice further into an isolated state she began losing a lot of weight and started falling out with friends she was once so close to after a fight with her housemates she moved out and into the ground floor flat on rawling road in gateshead where she lived with one of her work friends maxine women started contacting alice saying they had also been seeing dylan at the same time she was following these claims she ended the relationship for good in august but dylan was not prepared to accept no for an answer and alice's mental and physical health began to deteriorate even more over the following months he bombarded her with calls texts and emails while some messages were apologetic and begging for her to give him another chance please call me back please i just want to speak to you there's nothing else i don't really know if you're getting this wise message please can you call me back thank you others were threatening and aggressive he started contacting her family and friends even texting sue referring to her as mom and begging her to convince alice to take him back he then went on to tell her what a horrible person her daughter was he was completely obsessed and would stop at nothing to get alice's attention alice initially tried to be sympathetic and kind feeling bad that he was so affected by the end of the relationship but she soon was left with no choice but to cut him off as the tirade of messages and calls proved too much he hacked into her social media accounts and threatened to release photos he had secretly taken off her at the beginning of september he gained access to alice's facebook account and found out that she had started a new relationship with an army officer called mike dylan was completely enraged and contacted mike lying and telling him that alice was still seeing him at the same time on september 30th dylan drove to alice's flat repeatedly ringing the doorbell and then hiding when she looked outside she knew in her gut it was him and didn't open the door a few hours later dylan climbed the fence into the back garden and knocked on alice's window as she was in her bedroom when she opened the curtains she saw flowers and chocolates on the windowsill and dylan slowly backing away with his arms in the air as he drove back to edinburgh he left a sinister voicemail on her phone that said in part i just wanted to give you flowers and chocolates to prove that no i don't want to kill you i'm not intending to kill you that's all i wanted to say actually he spoke and he didn't want to speak so he didn't want to call me again so that's why i decided to come down just give me flowers and chocolates um on my way back if you want to take it you can take it if you want to pin it you can finish it's completely up to you i just wanted to do something just to say i'm sorry and i'm sure that i'm really i'm sorry and yeah that's the least i could have done but i know you're not going to come out in front of me and speak to me so that's why i left it there if you want to speak to me it'll be good if you don't there's nothing i can do anyways sorry for waking you up hope you have a good night's sleep bye desperate for help and with the situation getting worse alice contacted the non-emergency police number 101 for advice there and i just need a bit of advice really and more than anything and so i split up with my boyfriend about three months ago and since then i i know that he's hacked into my facebook and also my phone and he's been sending me a lot of messages even though i've asked him not to contact me and um basic basically like just messaging my friends and things and and then tonight he's um well i had a knock at my door and well he'd sent me a message saying i've been in the garden since five i had a knock at my door and and then when i went and i've got like a little you know the thing that you can look through and and there was no one there and then it happened again and two or three times and then and he's come round the back knocked on my bedroom window at the back of my size the ground floor flat and he's been outside and he's like left and some flowers and chocolates on the like outside windowsill and like he walked off he's not done anything but i'm just i'm concerned i've been putting off like my friends have been telling me to call the police i've been putting that off but i just feel a bit like shaken up tonight so well it can be cast as harassment yeah which is a crime yeah if you know any contact problem there's a number of things you can do yeah you could go to solicit them and take out an injunction yeah keep them away from you yeah or report it directly at least now when we can use human dependence which means to leave here comes near the contracts again you'll be arrested okay so which would you prefer can i um try that option please of course you can join me please oh sorry and it's alice so what's he called well his name's harry dylan and but he's he's got like a seat name which is and truman lives in edinburgh and then there's an edinburgh yeah so he's like driven down so he's constantly contacting you by by by for the pet store yeah and well i've dropped his number we've got two phones i've brought those numbers um so he's been sending me gmail messages i haven't talked to him off gmail because i don't want him to start emailing my work email then he's also made a fake snapchat account to try and contact me on i want me to get here and serve him with a pit in the order but well what i'm gonna do um we'll see if we can meet an appointment thank you they logged the incident as harassment and issued a police information notice also known as a pin a pin is issued as a caution where there are allegations of harassment made but it is not a court order nor does it give you a criminal record and signing it does not admit to any wrongdoing on the perpetrator's part on october 3rd this warning was communicated to dylan in his barracks it was arranged for his major at the edinburgh barracks to issue the police information notice although national guidance stated this should be done by a police officer in person unless exceptional circumstances prevented them despite the pin being issued he sent alice a parcel containing a letter and some other items in the letter he told her he knew she called the police and he was now in a lot of trouble for it he told her they had taken his laptop and phone away from him but this was another lie in the letter he also said i'm in a lot of [ __ ] now but hope you feel happy now i'm sending you everything i have that reminds me of you as you belong to another man wishing you to a happy life i will never come in your life again alice contacted the police for a second time sorry good evening north america speaking how can i help hi there and yeah i've been in touch with the police um um somebody's been issued with a pen so that they can't contact me however i've had a had a letter off them see you reporting a picture of the pen yeah yeah who was it from harry dylan uh what was the continental like that was he so pictures of me and him and like because he's my ex-boyfriend there's like a notebook that i sent in when we were together and a letter okay uh and uh what was it was it was like threatening or was it harassing no um not threatening it just it's just saying um that he knows i called the police on him and he had everything confiscated and all he has to himself is a pen and paper and ipod and explaining why he came down last friday um and then it says at the bottom he won't contact you know this will be the last i hear from him but he said that a lot of times and you know he never does seem to stop so do you want to call back to discuss this yeah what what what's usually what happened to that okay well i'll i'll i'll let them know you want to do something to contact your back just to discuss what can be done okay will it be the police officer that's been dealing with my case uh i can't guarantee who it'll be um i'll let well i mean i don't know you've got you've got you've been noticed yesterday it's been this is one of the reviews of us um is the best team before you back um any any time really we'll be fine okay nice i'll know you want someone to contact you yeah please okay all right thank you thank you she told people she felt palmed off at the response from the police and was distraught and defeated feeling nothing could or would be done to stop dylan she chillingly said to her sister emma she felt the police would only respond when he stabs me the 24 year old was living in a state of fear constantly looking over her shoulder she asked to be driven home to her front door each day by a colleague and once inside she would immediately double lock it during the evening of october 10th dylan drove down to her flat again he climbed into the back garden and took a photo of the back window and bathroom before driving back to edinburgh [Music] alice's day at work finished as normal [Music] her supervisor paul gave her a lift home dropping her straight at her door at 5 30 pm she messaged some friends showing them an outfit she had bought and briefly chatted to her boyfriend mike the message is then abruptly stopped alice's flatmate maxine returned home just before 6 30. [Music] please i've just i've just come back to my flat and the door was locked so i crawled through the window and my flatmates covered them blood in the bathroom breathing i don't know what time i can't look i'm sorry i'm trying to stay calm alice alice alice oh my gosh and yet the door was open no it wasn't old mother's water knocked all through my window that was on him in the back door and she's lying covered in blood she's watching blue can you have a look and see if she's breathing for the ambulance he's not she's not she's not breathing no she looks snow where's the blood from it's everywhere i don't know electrics broken everything say that again sorry our leg looks broken everything i don't know alice i was how much blood is that there was lots of afterwards everywhere she was released that she was in the shower she's everything she knows that she's been attacked please help things have been tipped over in the bathroom yes and everything that looks a mess like she's not breathing she's actually blue please let me know this was coming to that absolute psychopath say that again sorry she put on a complaint and about her ex and she vote 101 we tend to have reportedly started in contact and says we're going to do nothing now this is happening right he'll try to contact her at the weekend no she's contacted 101 because she put on a statement about him two weeks ago about you our boyfriend harry dylan right so have they she been having problems with her ex yes so do you think that that's what it is yeah i can hear the police are coming [Music] maxine alice ruggles was pronounced dead at 7 30 p.m her throat had been slit at least six times and she had suffered 24 injuries in total the coroner concluded that alice had died from catastrophic blood loss the police quickly identified dylan as their only suspect officers started running his car number plate through the automated number plate recognition system they quickly got a hit when his car was clearly picked up traveling from edinburgh down to newcastle earlier that day [Music] just before midnight dylan was arrested in his barracks on suspicion of murder at 3 24 am dylan arrived at gateshead police station for questioning [Music] during an interview he admitted he had travelled to newcastle that day but said it was because he wanted answers and closure about why the relationship had ended he denied entering her flat claiming that alice was the one that came out and approached him he told officers that she said she had heard stories about men killing their girlfriends and she was scared he would do the same to her dylan said he reached out to hold her hands and she scratched him across the face after this he drove away he said but what had actually happened was dylan drove down and parked near alice's flat waiting for her to return from work while waiting he started messaging a girl on tinder making plans to meet up later that night around 6 pm he climbed over the back wall and forced his way in through the window he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and cornered alice as she went into the bathroom he knelt on her back to pin her down and slipped her throat cutting through to her spine while dylan was in custody police discovered alice's blood on his steering wheel and on his help for hiro's wristband analysis of her phone records placed the phone on route to edinburgh too a few hours later dylan was charged with the murder of alice ruggles his trial began in april 2017 at newcastle crown court and he was still pleading not guilty to murder but the overwhelming amount of evidence meant he and his defense team had no choice but to change his story dylan claimed that he showed up at alice's flat with the intention of getting his belongings when a violent argument ensued alice attacked him with a knife and in the process of trying to hurt him she had inflicted the injuries upon herself he then said that as alice lay dying she spoke of how much she hated her family dylan was asked what was going through his head as he looked down at alice and his response was that he felt terrible for her father clive as he had been unable to protect his daughter in her last moments the courts also heard that a restraining order had been taken out against dylan by an ex-girlfriend three years earlier after his ex had broken up with him he tracked her down and spat in her face in the streets while hurling abuse at her and her new boyfriend sadly at the time of alice's phone calls northumbria police had no knowledge about the earlier restraining order after an 11-day trial and just two hours of deliberations dylan was found guilty of the murder of alice ruggles and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 22 years carrying the knife to the flat would have given a 25-year starting point for dylan to serve in prison but as he didn't arrive armed with the weapon anta picked it up while he was in the flat he was sentenced to a 22-year minimum term instead during his sentencing judge paul sloane described the murder as utter barbarism and said not a shred of remorse you have shown from first to last indeed you were only concentrating so hard on getting your story right when giving evidence you forgot to even shed a crocodile tear but none of our family or any of alice's closest friends will ever be the same again we will live the rest of our lives knowing that alex should have been here with us wondering what she would have become imagining all the people she would have continued to affect with her infectious sense of humor and her sheer love of life alice was a kind incredibly sociable fun-loving person she had the ability to light up the room whenever she walked in we miss her so much we believe there are important lessons to be learned from what happened to alice we didn't think that she was a sort of girl something like this would happen too with hindsight there are many signs of stalking and coercive behavior that we did not recognize everyone should know about these signs this is national stalking awareness week and we feel there is a need for much more work to be done to publicize and identify stalking and controlling behavior to tackle the root causes and to stop them developing out of control we all hope to do as much as we can from now on both on our own and in collaboration with the organizations such as the suzy lamplu trust and women's aid to learn lessons to raise awareness and ultimately as we all sincerely hope to help prevent what happened to alice happening to others the police's handling of the case received huge backlash after the trial northumbria police conducted an internal review and identified potential misconduct by officers which was referred to the independent office of police conduct two officers then face disciplinary action over the handling of the case northumbria police said they did refer their actions to the independent police complaints commission but said no one at the time knew the true threat that dillon posed the force of since apologized after the independent police complaints commission ruled that the officers failed to properly investigate alice's claims gateshead community safety board also carried out a domestic homicide review the review concluded that alice had been subject to significant stalking and agreed upon a series of 20 recommendations to help prevent similar incidents from happening again her parent sue and clive said we believe that her death was preventable we find it difficult to comprehend that although alice described in her first phone call to the police that she was being stalked and provided ample evidence the police and the army were unable to support and protect her souvenclive set up the alice ruggles trust which raises awareness about stalking and coercive control they work to ensure that stalking offences result in immediate action both to protect the victim and to deal effectively with the alleged stalker the trust also aims to provide education and training and campaigns for improved legal measures we really want to raise awareness of stalking so we want to make sure that all the things that happen to alice don't happen to anybody else and if anybody else in that situation they recognize it for what it is so they're thinking hang on this is this is a warning sign and i need to be careful here it's really really hard coping with the fact that alice isn't here anymore we sort of thought originally it would get better but we realize it's not going to get better we're just going to get used to living with it you know we miss her every day every single day they also launched the alice ruggles trust relationship safety resource which is teaching materials and lesson plans that focus on stalking and coercive control these are freely available to secondary school teachers throughout the uk in 2020 stalking protection orders were announced by the government this means that suspected stalkers could be given court orders blocking them from contacting or approaching their alleged victims while the police investigate the claims thoroughly sue said that new figures show an increase in the number of stalking incidents that were now being recorded by police and she said this showed that officers were now correctly identifying the crime alice ruggle's spirited fun and affectionate personality continues to live on through those that knew her she made a huge impact in a short space of time her family and friends vow to keep her memory alive and hope that her story will continue to help and educate by supporting those that may have experienced similar things and by challenging the law and the handling of similar cases most importantly they vow that alice's name will not be forgotten and her voice will continue to be heard if you have been affected by any of the issues raised in today's episode surrounding issues of coercive control domestic abuse and stalking i've left links to further resources in the description box below [Music]

Channel: Truly Criminal

Views: 973,279

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Id: EroAKMJ2l6M

Length: 26min 51sec (1611 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 18 2021