Family of Grantham woman say inquest verdict of unlawful killing gives Daniela Espirito Santo ‘a voice at last’
A victim of domestic abuse has been “given a voice” after a jury reached a verdict of unlawful killing at her inquest, her family and friends said.
The jury inquest into the death of 23-year-old mother-of-two Daniela Espírito Santo today (Wednesday) found that she had been unlawfully killed at her Chestnut Grove home in Grantham in the early hours of April 9, 2020.
The jury found that domestic abuse and a second assault by her then-partner, Julio Jesus, caused the emotional distress that triggered her heart condition, leading to cardiac arrest. After 10 days of evidence, the jury reached its conclusion in under four hours.
The inquest also found “significant missed opportunities” by Lincolnshire Police to safeguard Daniela and her two children and that officers had not carried out their duties in line with the APP (authorised professional practice) College of Policing.
Daniela’s mum and dad, along with family and friends wept in the coroners court as the result was read out by the Jury’s foreman.
Outside the coroner's court at the Myle Cross Centre in Lincoln today (Wednesday), best friend Charly Whitmore paid tribute to Daniela, saying she “loved her children dearly” and that she would always “take you at face value, never judge”.
“This has finally given Daniela a voice, and people will now know what really happened behind closed doors,” she said.
She said she was “heartbroken” but added: “It’s not justice, but it’s the start of a long battle.”
The family hope Lincolnshire Police will take controlling and coercive behaviour more seriously.
The National Domestic Violence Helpline is a 24hr Freephone available on 0808 2000 247 operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week
“We hope they don’t let someone else slip through the net like they did with Daniela,” Charly added.
“The family would like to thank the responding officers from the evening of April 8, the community for their support and help, and our solicitors, Andrew and Emma.”
Matthew Gold, of Gold Jennings Solicitors, who have been working on behalf of the family, said the family was “very pleased” the jury had had a full opportunity to investigate the case.
“Especially the offence of coercive and controlling behaviour, where they found significant missed opportunities by Lincolnshire Police to safeguard her,” he said.
He added that the inquest was “crucial”, stating that without the inquest, the investigation into police conduct wouldn’t have taken place. The family believe a previous investigation by the IOPC was not sufficient and missed a number of issues the inquest brought to light.
In coming to their conclusion, the jury agreed that Lincolnshire Police had made a more-than-minimal contribution to Daniela’s death, including a failure to record all complaints made in November and December, failures to record or investigate controlling and coercive behaviour, and the lack of domestic violence prevention notices or orders.
They also said that allowing Mr Jesus to go without investigating controlling and coercive behaviour, giving him conditional bail, and allowing him to leave without an escort to collect his belongings were also factors in Daniela’s death.
In their conclusion, they said: “There was a failure to carry out a full investigation of all the available evidence.
“If these actions had been carried out, the former partner, on balance, would have remained in custody.”
The jury was instructed not to identify Mr Jesus in their ruling because the purpose of an inquest is to establish how a person died, not to apportion blame for the death.
Daniela died on April 9, 2020, hours after reporting her partner, Mr Jesus, for assault on the morning of April 8.
Mr Jesus was later released on bail but breached conditions not to visit Daniela’s address or contact her by returning to the flat she lived in with their two children.
Before midnight, Daniela called 999 to report an assault but was told to call 101 as he had left.
The call handler missed a 'critical marker' indicating an urgent response was required.
He realised his mistake after ending the call and sent officers, but they arrived too late; Daniela was found unconscious with her child.
She died at the scene just after midnight.
As the inquest was considering its decision, the coroner also heard evidence on Wednesday from Superintendent Phil Baker, Western Area Commander and chair of the force’s Cultural Working Group.
He updated the coroner on measures the force had taken to improve the force’s response to domestic abuse, which makes up more than 20% of the crimes the force deals with.
These included the setting up of strategic groups and organisations to oversee the response, a new command and control system, and other major updates to IT systems – with critical markers now appearing next to names and related incidents appearing in a chronological summary at the top of logs for easy access.
He said officers now have set training days that don’t affect service provision.
He said around 97% of officers had now had dedicated training in domestic abuse and controlling and coercive behaviour, with the priority being frontline officers, and those left to complete training being staff who were less likely to deal with these offences.
Further work has improved partnership access to systems for child services and safeguarding.
The University of Lincoln is helping update systems and DASH data, with analysts ensuring reports are up-to-date.
He said this enabled staff to see a wider picture and also meant reports could be checked and updated if answers varied from assessment to assessment.
For example, if a victim reported strangulation in one report, but did not in the next one, that could be picked up on, and the latest report adjusted to better reflect the situation.
Work has also taken place to ensure access to the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (DVDS) – otherwise known as Clare’s Law.
In a statement following the result, chief constable Paul Gibson said: “Following the conclusion of the inquest into the death of Daniela Espirito Santo, our thoughts today are with her, and her family and friends – in particular, her two children.
“We would like to thank the jury and the Senior Coroner for their thorough and detailed work and we would like to pay tribute to the dignity of Daniela’s mother and stepfather.
“As the jury has found, Daniela was unlawfully killed.
“The jury have identified that Lincolnshire Police could have done more in our interactions with Daniela, and with her then-partner. We apologise to Daniela’s children, her family and her friends for the suffering they have endured since her death, and for where we could have done more.
“There is more work to be done in our prevention of and response to domestic abuse, along with the changes already made and we can speak about those later, for today we send our sincere condolences to Daniela’s family and friends.”
Mr Gold said the family would wait and see if the new actions put in place would safeguard victims of domestic abuse in the future.
Mr Jesus was arrested and charged with manslaughter following Daniela’s death.
By the time it reached court, the charge was reduced to two counts of assault due to insufficient medical evidence linking it to her death.
He was sentenced to 10 months and has since been released.
He hasn’t engaged with the inquest and is believed to have returned to Portugal.
