Jury hears abuser’s confession during a inquest into Grantham woman Daniela Espirito Santo’s death
An abuser admitted he had assaulted his partner in an interview after his arrest but was bailed despite fears he would return to her flat.
Julio Jesus told officers during his interview: “I know I hurt her, but I don’t want to hurt her. Sometimes I lose my mind and do bad things.”
A transcription of the interview was acted out by the former PC who interviewed him and a coroner’s assistant during the fourth day of a jury inquest into the death of Daniela Espírito Santo today (Friday).
Daniela, of Chestnut Grove in Grantham, had reported Mr Jesus for assault on the morning of April 8, 2020, and had made an official complaint for the first time, in which she detailed numerous assaults and offered more than 90 photos of her injuries.
Mr Jesus was arrested following the complaint but was later bailed. He returned to the property and messaged Daniela, breaching bail conditions.
Daniela called 999 again after he left but was advised to call 101. She died in the early hours of April 9, 2020, while on hold to the police. A pathologist said her death was due to an acute deterioration of an existing heart condition.
Mr Jesus has not engaged with the inquest into Daniela’s death and is not due to give any live or read witness statements.
During the interview transcript, parts of which are “unintelligible,” Mr Jesus confirms his name and other details.
He admitted to the assaults Daniela reported on April 8 and earlier in March, during which both times he had forced her onto the bed and choked her with his arm.
The National Domestic Violence Helpline is a 24hr Freephone available on 0808 2000 247 operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
However, parts of his account differ from hers, including accusing Daniela of being the first to throw a plastic toy and denying that he used a door to crush her.
As parts of the allegations were read out, the transcript notes him as saying: “Oh dear. Oh my god.”
“I’m a sh*t, a sh*t, sorry I’m a sh*t,” he says at one point.
The officer who interviewed him described him as “appearing remorseful” for his actions.
Mark Duggan, who is now retired from the police force, was a uniformed crime investigator at the time. He told the inquest he believed at the time that it was “not remotely likely” that Mr Jesus would have been kept in custody by the Crown Prosecution Service.
“Mr Jesus had no previous convictions. The assault, while unpleasant, was not a higher-level assault.
“He had admitted the offence and showed a suitable level of remorse,” he said.
However, he acknowledged there were fears he would go back to the house and there could be a further potential incident, and that he might go back and influence her.
These were the reasons bail conditions were put in place, stipulating that he should not contact her or go to her address.
“It was a domestic assault; she didn’t want him back, she wanted no phone contact with him, and we needed to have conditions in place to strengthen that,” he said.
Mr Duggan was asked about the role he played in the lead-up to the interview and afterwards, before he signed off for his shift.
When Daniela’s case was originally assessed with a Domestic Abuse Stalking Harassment (DASH) report, it was labelled as “medium” risk; however, senior officers later updated that to “high”. It was unclear if this was before or after Mr Jesus had been interviewed.
As well as reviewing documentation for the incident and interviewing Mr Jesus, this included contacting Daniela to keep her up to date on the situation.
Following the upgrade in risk level, Mr Duggan was also asked to register the incident with the Lincolnshire Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) and register a critical marker next to her address and name, which should have alerted police to her being high-risk in future calls.
He was asked if he had ever said to Daniela that she should let Mr Jesus back in to collect his belongings should he return to the flat.
“Oh God, no,” he said.
“That’s the complete opposite of what I would say.
“I would have gone myself if that was the case.”
However, Mr Duggan revealed that he had been unaware that when Mr Jesus was later released, it was not with a police escort.
He would not learn of Daniela’s death until the next day when the case details were taken out of his hands due to further investigations, and he was forbidden from accessing records.
Mr Duggan acknowledged that more could have been done. He admitted as well that he had not delved deeply into previous assessments or reports carried out by officers, adding: “Based on the nature of the role, we tended to focus on what was in front of us.”
Body-worn camera footage from officers earlier in the day had not been available to him, though the reasons for this were unclear. He suggested there may have been technical issues with downloading the footage.
When family counsel Shaheen Rahman raised that the video showed Daniela telling officers about a long history of incidents, along with more than 90 photos of injuries, he said: “Wow, I wish I had seen that.”
He also said he was “a little stupefied” in hindsight that a marker had not been put onto Mr Jesus’s car when he was released on bail.
The family counsel have this week been questioning officers on what more could have been done to recognise controlling and coercive behaviour in Daniela’s case.
Ms Rahman suggested during the inquest that it may have been that Mr Jesus would have been remanded had this been the case.
She also emphasised that domestic abusers can often appear remorseful, particularly to partners, as part of their controlling and coercive behaviour.
Counsel have continually questioned the level of training officers received into controlling and coercive behaviour after it became a crime in 2015, with several officers so far acknowledging they could not recall practical or formal classes on it.
During the same day, an officer also admitted not checking previous domestic abuse reports or incidents when attending an earlier incident in December.
PC Jack McGhee was the officer who responded to Daniela’s call on December 29 about incidents on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
The court has already heard the 40-minute call in which Daniela told a police operator about the abuse she had received over the Christmas period, as well as a long history of controlling and coercive behaviour going back years.
They have also heard from Inspector Birkin, who signed off on PC McGhee’s report after it was submitted. Insp Birkin has already acknowledged the DASH report “could have been better” while the family’s counsel Emma-Louise Fenelon described it as “wholly inadequate”.
Inconsistencies in the report included the DASH assessment accepting a “no” to a question about whether Mr Jesus had strangled her.
However, the incident log had recorded Daniela’s allegations that he had grabbed her in a way which made her have difficulty breathing.
It would also have appeared on previous reports if they had been explored or read.
When asked by the jury if this was disputed with Daniela by PC McGhee when filling in the form, he said: “At the point she said no, we would have moved on.”
The DASH report, which was graded as “standard” by PC McGhee, had no reference to the history of assaults on it.
PC McGhee said he wouldn't have access to the voice recording of the operator's call.
He would have access to general information but wouldn’t have done background checks because it was triaged by the control room.
He said Daniela had told him she called the police on that day “in an attempt to scare him” into taking their issues more seriously.
She told him about a verbal argument on December 25 regarding Mr Jesus using drugs and wasting money.
“She was frustrated he was leaving her alone with the children while he went off with friends to buy drugs,” he said.
She stood in the doorway of his room, he dismissed the conversation and tried to barge his way out. Daniela fell and banged her head against the wall, sustaining a bruise. By the 29th, the bruise had gone.
Daniela told police at the time that she did not wish to make a formal complaint.
PC McGhee treated all the incidents on the 25th, 26th, and 29th as a single incident and dealt with it as an overview.
Paul Smith, the senior coroner for Greater Lincolnshire, told him: “I would suggest to you it would have been preferable to split each incident on its own merits.”
PC McGhee responded: “In hindsight, yes.”
PC McGhee told the inquest that she was indecisive about making a complaint, but that the ball had been left in her court after he had left.
He later told the inquest: “I can’t just go and find him and tell him what he can and can’t spend his money on.”
There were a number of different answers on the DASH report compared to the previous ones.
PC McGhee said he had rated the incident as “standard” due to the information he had been given by Daniela at the time.
He said the DASH report would have been completed at the time, not back at the office.
Mr Smith said: “You didn’t identify that a DASH had been completed on May 19, nor on November 6 - weeks before you attended.”
“No sir, I haven’t gone into this detail,” said PC McGhee.
PC McGhee told the inquest he had had some training but had not been concerned about coercive and controlling behaviour because she was allowed her own phone, she wasn’t being told what to wear or what to do.
He said that at the time he was “comfortable and confident” that Daniela was aware of her options.
“It might be suggested to you that [the DASH] is quite brief, but there was a wealth of information you could have included,” said Mr Smith.
Mr Smith also read from an expected report from an expert witness due to appear next week which highlighted the discrepancy between the number of allegations and the report PC Mcghee created, as well as highlighting a failure to ask if controlling and coercive behaviour should be considered.
They said the lack of a Domestic Violence Protection Notice was a “missed opportunity”.
Questioned by the family counsel, PC Mcghee agreed that the DASH should have been looked at holistically and comprehensively and that controlling and coercive behaviour should have been examined according to Lincolnshire Police’s policy.
Daniela’s complaint, in which she described how Julio had climbed on top of her and held his arm to her throat, was also read out to the court.
The inquest continues.
