The mum of a teen who was murdered by her violent ex has warned other parents to keep an eye on their children’s relationships.
Ellie Gould, 17, was strangled and stabbed by her boyfriend of three months, Thomas Griffiths, in May 2019 after she called off their relationship.
Refusing to accept her decision, vicious Griffiths went to Ellie’s house during a free period in the school day and brutally attacked her.
After initially grabbing Ellie by the throat, he took a kitchen knife and stabbed her 17 times. When he was done, he washed the knife to get rid of his DNA and stuck the knife back into her neck to make it look like suicide.
Three years on from Ellie’s death, her mum Carole wants other parents to know the dangers of controlling relationships which can easily spiral into violence.
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“When I look back now, I realise Griffiths was very subtly trying to control Ellie,” Carole told The Mirror.
“He always wanted her to see him after school - and for the first couple of weeks, it was a novelty for her. He was her first boyfriend.”
Since Ellie died, Carole has researched coercive control in relationships - particularly among young people.
Coercive control was officially recognised as a type of abuse and a crime in the UK in 2016.
Examples of this include isolating a person from their friends and family, demanding all their time and monitoring what they’re up to and keeping tabs on your online activity.
For students, there is another tell-tale sign of coercive control that Carole spotted in Ellie’s relationship - educational sabotage.
This is when an abuser stops or hinders their partner’s studies, instead demanding all their time.
“[Griffiths] kept talking about marriage and having children which was a lot for a 17-year-old,” Carole said, recalling Ellie’s killer never seemed to be fussed about his own studies.
“The week before their exams, Ellie said she wasn’t going to see him after school so she could study. But he kept trying to make her feel guilty.”
The mum and campaigner added guilt was a common theme in the relationship.
“There was one occasion when Ellie was doing something with a girlfriend of hers. Griffiths said, ‘you have to come to my house, my mum’s bought food especially for us’.
“As subtle as that may seem, it was manipulative.”
Carole noted one chilling incident in particular that happened the day before Ellie was murdered - and was the final straw for the relationship.
She said: “They were in the school common room playing a game of throwing sweets. Griffiths was pulling Ellie’s arm and telling her to sit with him instead but she shrugged him off.
“Then he tried to pull her top down in front of everyone.”
Realising this was alarming behaviour, Ellie came home and told her mum what Griffiths had done - and the pair both agreed it was time to call it a day on the relationship.
However, Ellie never got to enjoy life without her controlling ex as the following day, his behaviour escalated into unthinkable violence when he stabbed her to death.
After her daughter died, Carole teamed up with Julie Devey, whose daughter Poppy Devey-Waterhouse was murdered at the age of 24 by her jealous ex Joe Atkinson.
The pair have studied Dr Jane Monckton-Smith’s Eight Steps towards homicide within relationships - which maps out how abusers escalate from control to violence.
“Griffiths’ escalation of violence was so quick and so alarming,” she said. “He went through those stages so quickly and there wouldn’t have been time [to intervene].”
But while she notes it would have been difficult to stop Griffiths in time, Carole wants other parents, and teens themselves, to know and spot the signs of coercive control.
“I think young girls need to be educated on what coercive control is. If you partner is saying ‘I don’t want you going out’ it’s not because they love you.
“That’s not what love is. It’s control. Young girls need to be taught what is healthy in relationships.”
After Ellie’s tragic death, Wiltshire Council launched a review into the murder which recommended local agencies should work to increase awareness of domestic abuse in young people’s relationships.
The review also recommended “that Wiltshire Community Safety Partnership considers how evidence-based best practice in whole school approaches to healthy relationships, can be shared and consolidated across Wiltshire schools.”
