A probation services officer who had just five months of experience before she was allocated prolific offender Damien Bendall’s case told an inquest she would have prevented him from living with the pregnant girlfriend he later murdered if she had been told about comments he made suggesting he would kill her and her children if the relationship failed.
Bendall, 33, who is serving a whole-life order for the murders of his partner Terri Harris, 35, her daughter Lacey Bennett, 11, her son John Paul Bennett, 13, and Lacey’s friend Connie Gent, 11, after he attacked them with a claw hammer at their home in Killamarsh, Derbyshire, had reportedly told an officer from the Electronic Monitoring Service (EMS) that he would kill them if the relationship went “bad”.
Inquests into the deaths of Ms Harris, her children and Connie, at Chesterfield Coroner’s Court, heard on Wednesday from Aisha Fatima, who had less than six months of experience in the criminal justice system when she was allocated Bendall’s case in June 2021.
At the time, Bendall was subject to a 17-month suspended sentence for committing arson in Swindon in May 2020, but he was living with Ms Harris and her children in Chandos Crescent, Killamarsh.
It was the latest in a series of serious and violent offences that Bendall had committed dating back to 2004, but he had been incorrectly classified as posing a medium risk of serious harm to the public, and a low risk of harm to partners and to children.
The inquest had earlier heard that an officer from the EMS who was fitting Bendall with a tag for previous offences did not report Bendall when he told her he would “murder my girlfriend and children” if their relationship “went bad”.
Ms Fatima, who worked at the probation service in Chesterfield, was asked if she had been aware that those comments had been made, just months before he went on to murder Ms Harris and the children in September 2021, to which she replied “no”.
When asked what she would have done had she known what Bendall had said, she told the court: “I would have taken action. I wouldn’t have allowed Bendall to reside at the address with Terri Harris and her children.
“I would have spoken to my SPO [senior probation officer].”
When asked why she would have taken this action, Ms Fatima responded: “Because it was a threat to kill them.”
The inquest also heard how Ms Fatima would not have been given Bendall’s case had he not been incorrectly assessed as posing a medium risk, because of her inexperience.
Ms Fatima told the court she was “comfortable” to deal with Bendall, even though she was “visibly Muslim” and he had previously expressed racist views and had claimed he had been a member of a white supremacist group called the Aryan Brotherhood.
She accepted that she believed him when he mentioned he had converted to Islam, even though she admitted he did still say racist things.
She said: “I felt that it was a case that I could learn from. I was comfortable to deal with it as long as he was comfortable dealing with me.”
Ms Fatima also told the inquest she did not feel like she had been given enough training for the role, which was mostly carried out online.
She said: “I did feel my training was inadequate. I felt like I didn’t learn as much as we were expected to have learned.
“It was really hard to concentrate and take everything in on a Teams call over a couple of days.”
She also admitted she had not taken a “deeper dive” into Bendall’s history after taking over his case and had only read two out of 10 of the previous risk assessment reports detailing his background.
An independent report by chief inspector of probation Justin Russell previously said the Probation Service’s handling of Bendall was of an “unacceptable standard” at every stage and “critical opportunities” to correct errors were missed.
The inquests continue.
