The man accused of raping the Dorset teenager Gaia Pope before she disappeared in 2017 was under investigation before she went to police and should have been more closely monitored, the teenager’s family said on Wednesday.
Following a long-running inquest into the teenager’s death, which found that multiple agencies including the police and health trusts missed chances to help her when it concluded in July, her family vowed to keep fighting for structural change in the services they say failed their loved one.
They have called for the introduction of a “Gaia Principle” in every police force in a manifesto for change– to ensure that when an allegation of rape is made officers are required to check for other allegations against a suspect, and present all allegations to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). A failure to do so should be considered as police misconduct, they said.
Pope’s family argue that police and health and social care professionals missed more than 50 opportunities to support the 19-year-old. Her body was found less than a mile from where she was last seen, 11 days after she vanished from the seaside town of Swanage.
Speaking at an emotional press conference on Wednesday, three months after the inquest, Pope’s cousin Marienna Pope-Weidemann said Dorset police “were aware” in 2014 of other alleged victims, but said the family believed they were dealt with in isolation and “presented to the Crown Prosecution Service as a he-said-she-said rather than what it was: a he-said-they-said”.
A spokesperson for Dorset police said the force could not provide further details of “whether someone was or was not subject to investigation at any particular time”.
Harriet Wistrich, director of the Centre for Women’s Justice, told the press conference that the Gaia Principle had to have an element of compunction. She said recent promises from the police to ensure suspect’s backgrounds were investigated and all reports considered were welcome, but added: “If it is not followed through and those who are required to do it are not held to account then all it is words and rhetoric and nothing more.”
Marcia Rigg, whose brother Sean Rigg died in police custody while suffering an episode of mental ill health and who chairs of the United Families & Friends Campaign, commended Pope’s family for their fight for justice. “It is always families who have to instigate change when they should be grieving,” she told the press conference.
Pope’s family have long argued that her mental health and epilepsy deteriorated because of a lack of action taken when she alleged to police that she had been raped in 2014 when she was 16 by Connor Hayes, then in his early 20s. Hayes was arrested but officers told Pope he was not going to be prosecuted and advised her that appealing against that decision would be traumatic.
Hayes was arrested and his computer seized in December 2015. In April 2017, he was jailed for taking an indecent moving image of a child, possession of indecent images of a child and paying for the sexual services of a child. He was jailed again in 2018 after inciting a 15-year-old girl to engage in sexual activity over the internet.
Pope disappeared on 7 November 2017 at a time when Hayes was about to be released from prison and soon after being sent indecent images by another man, which relatives say triggered her post-traumatic stress disorder. The jury at her inquest said she likely died between 3.59pm on 7 November 2017 and 10am on 8 November 2017, from hypothermia and that her death was “probably caused by her mental health and mental state.”
During the inquest a police officer admitted altering official logs relating to the search for Pope, while a different officer said her relatives were “taking the piss” when they made a series of desperate calls for help on the day she vanished. The recordings of the phone calls made on the day Gaia vanished emerged late in the day after a whistleblower revealed their existence.
At the press conference, Deborah Coles – director of the Inquest charity that provides advice on state-related deaths – said the “unacceptable death toll of women” was proof of the “glaring failures of successive governments” to implement inquest recommendations.
Amelia Handy, policy lead at Rape Crisis England & Wales, said Pope’s case was “far, far too familiar”. She added that it bore a resemblance to 1000s of women seen by Rape Crisis. She added: “We call them survivors because surviving is not a given.”
Pope-Weidemann said she had been told that two officers found in the inquest to have altered records relating to the search were not going to face disciplinary proceedings. She added that Dorset police had “no plans” to introduce a specialist unit to deal with cases of rape and sexual assault.
Regarding the altering of records Dorset Police said all information had been referred to the IOPC and the outcome of any investigation was a matter for them, adding that work had been carried out to ensure search logs “could not be retrospectively amended or updated with a new process introduced” and updated guidance on search logs given.
The spokesperson said there were “currently no plans” to introduce a dedicated rape and sexual assault team, but all detectives were given sexual offence training and the force had a team of Sexual Offence Liaison Officers (SOLOs).
Pope-Weidemann said: “If this resistance to progressive change continues it can indicate only one thing: that when all is said and done, they put no value on lives like Gaia’s or the holes they leave behind when they are lost.”
