Police did not investigate a bag of weapons containing a note saying “Do not lie”, found in a field near to where Gracie Spinks was murdered a month later, an inquest has heard.
The 23-year-old was killed while tending to her horse on 18 June 2021 by a former colleague, Michael Sellers, 35, who she had previously reported to Derbyshire police for harassment.
Sellers was found dead about 150 metres from where Spinks was discovered in a field near her home in Old Whittington, Chesterfield, after taking his own life. A suicide note found at the scene said he could not deal with “all of her lies”.
A postmortem found Spinks sustained 10 stab wounds, including a fatal one to the neck.
On the first day of a four-week inquest, the assistant coroner Matthew Kewley told the jury that a rucksack containing a number of knives, an axe, a hammer, a handwritten note that said “Do not lie” and a M&S till receipt was handed in to police on 6 May 2021.
He said the police were “ultimately not concerned about the contents of the rucksack so didn’t carry out an investigation”.
After Spinks’s death, police did investigate the bag and were able to trace the receipt to a member of Sellers’ family who lived at his home address. There is no suggestion the family member was involved in buying the weapons or plotting the attack.
The jury heard how Sellers worked as a warehouse supervisor at Chesterfield-based e-commerce firm Xbite, where a number of female employees had complained about his behaviour.
Soon after Spinks joined the company in April 2020, he took an interest in her and the pair met on a number of occasions outside work. By December 2020, Spinks had made it clear she no longer wanted this to continue, but Sellers had become “obsessed” and could not accept her decision, Kewley said.
He would bombard colleagues with questions to find out information about her, and one morning drove to the field where she looked after her horse, Paddy, before work.
She reported him to her employer for harassment, and Sellers was subsequently dismissed after a disciplinary process in which he lied and alleged he was in a relationship with Spinks.
She also reported him to the police as “she was worried it could happen again to someone else and get worse”, Kewley told the jury.
“Ultimately no action was taken against Michael Sellers but he was given words of advice by police,” he said.
In a statement read outside Chesterfield coroner’s court, Spinks’s family said they hoped the inquest would highlight “the urgent need to change national policing and stalking legislation”.
They have launched a campaign in her memory to improve police responses to stalking cases through better training and resources.
“Our beautiful Gracie was snatched away from us by a coward who was unwilling to face the consequences of his unthinking actions,” they said.
“We cannot hold him to account. We have had no closure. The inquest will enable the nation to hear the distressing facts as to how and in what circumstances Gracie was killed.
“Gracie’s concern to the end was protecting other women. She was another young beautiful woman who was unnecessarily killed.
“Tragically we find ourselves empathising with and adopting the words of Sarah Everard’s family: ‘Our lives will never be the same. We should be a family of five, now we’re a family of four.’”
The inquest continues.
