The parents of Gracie Spinks have said the police response to their daughter’s stalking case was “diabolical” as they called for a national change and more funding for stalking advocates in forces to protect future victims.
An inquest jury concluded on Thursday that Gracie was unlawfully killed by a man she had reported for stalking, after Derbyshire police admitted a number of failings in the handling of her case.
A three-week inquest into her death heard that Michael Sellers, 35, who met 23-year-old Gracie through work and became “obsessed with her”, had previously harassed at least eight other women.
Gracie reported his behaviour to the police four months before her murder in June 2021. Officers cautioned him but did not request information from his employer about complaints against him or carry out a national database check, and categorised him as “low risk”.
They also failed to investigate a bag of weapons found near the field in Duckmanton, Derbyshire, where Gracie was killed while tending to her horse, six weeks before her death, with one officer telling the inquest she thought they could be theatre props.
A rucksack containing a number of knives, an axe, a hammer, Viagra, a handwritten note that said “do not lie”, as well as a receipt that could be traced to Sellers were logged as lost property by the force.
The 10 members of the inquest jury, who wore pink and purple wristbands in Gracie’s memory, concluded she was unlawfully killed by Sellers.
Multiple failings by Derbyshire police, which the force has admitted, were referred to in the record of inquest but the jury was prevented by a coroner from deciding whether the failings had contributed to Gracie’s death.
Gracie’s mother, Alison Ward, and father, Richard Spinks, said the inquest had exposed a “diabolical” response from Derbyshire police.
Spinks said: “It has been upsetting and emotionally draining. It has been a catalogue of errors on the police’s part. I think Derbyshire police have let Gracie down big time. It seems like they weren’t bothered, they didn’t want to investigate. They completely failed to join the dots.”
Ward said: “We thought she would be safeguarded, that things would be put in place, that she would be safe. But that’s not been the case at all. It’s basic policing where they’ve failed.
“The inquest has shown us that victims of stalking don’t actually always realise the level of risk they are exposed to. You look to the police for support, because they are supposedly trained in this, but they just completely failed.”
In an emotional statement read during the inquest, Ward described how the “heart of the family had been ripped out” after Gracie’s murder. She said: “Gracie was the life, soul and energy of the house. She would always be singing, playing music and having fun with us all. We would very often have karaoke nights in our living room. Now we have silence, the heart of our family has been ripped out.”
Ward said Gracie’s bedroom remained exactly as she had left it when she went to tend to her horse, Paddy, on the morning of 18 June 2021, when Sellers attacked her before taking his own life nearby.
“Gracie’s towel is on the radiator as she left it on the Thursday night, her bed is not made and a plate and packet of empty crisps lay on her bedside cabinet,” Ward said. “Her water cup is on the windowsill and her handbag is where she left it and her clothes remain on the floor. I cannot bear to touch anything.”
Gracie was pursuing a career as a swimming teacher before she was furloughed in 2020 and took a temporary job at a local e-commerce company, Xbite, where Sellers worked as her supervisor.
The pair met a few times outside work, but when Gracie told him she no longer wanted this to continue, he refused to accept her decision and would bombard colleagues with questions about her.
It was after Gracie found him waiting for her at the field where she kept her horse that she reported him to her employer, and Sellers was subsequently dismissed for gross misconduct.
Gracie then reported Sellers to Derbyshire police, saying during a 101 call: “I’m just worried that the next time it happens to someone else it could be worse … he might kidnap someone.”
The inquest heard police had uncovered evidence that Sellers had harassed at least eight other women he met through work, with some reporting that they had to quit their job and move house to avoid him. One woman said Sellers had bumped his car into hers at a roundabout as he followed her while she was driving home.
Gracie’s family said they would keep campaigning for more resources and training for police officers to ensure stalking cases are thoroughly investigated.
“We want to bring a change across the UK and to put funding in place for advocates in police forces that can deal with stalking cases specifically,” said Ward. “We didn’t realise how big a problem this was until what happened to Gracie.”
An investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct found failings and missed investigative opportunities from the force, and two constables were found to have breached standards of professional behaviour and received written warnings.
Reading a statement outside court on behalf of Derbyshire police, Det Supt Darren De’ath said: “Put simply, as a force we failed Gracie, and for that, I can only offer my own and the force’s most sincere apologies.
“We have now heard the conclusion of the jury and we accept this fully. We await any further recommendations that may come from the coroner and will review these in due course.”
He said that in response to Gracie’s death the force had made “significant changes to the ways in which we receive and investigate stalking reports, as well as how we support and safeguard victims of these crimes”.
“However, none of this seeks to minimise the failings that we have seen in this case and the force fully accepts the failures that were part of this most tragic set of circumstances,” he said.
