Caroline Flack Dead

It’s always a tragedy when someone decides their life isn’t worth living, for them and for their loved ones.

I knew the name of Caroline Flack (always got confused with Roberta Flack though - I’m old!) and the DV case but I didn’t know much more about her. I watched most of one series of Love Island when all my family was home one summer and they watched each evening. Not my choice of viewing, I must say.

To me, LI seemed manipulative of people’s feelings, it humiliated participants, encouraged a ‘gladiators v lions’ scenario and CF played a full part in all that. Suicide is a terrible thing but blaming a system she was a part of is ironic, to me.

EllanVannin, certainly no normal person acts that way, but are they to ignore domestic abuse by men too, saying that no normal man would act that way? Or do men just more readily look like "thugs" to be prosecuted? The police are supposed to decide if an offence has been committed - which is had. The CPS are supposed to decide if the police have enough evidence (which we assume they had) and if the public would be helped by having a prosecution. At this particular time in history there is public interest in protection of male abuse victims, so they made the decision differently from how they would 10 years ago. And finally, it's the judge's job to decide whether the person was just a thug and or whether they had problems that should be treated compassionately. Sadly she wasn't able to wait the almost certainly benign outcome.

The thing is ellanvannin its often not "thugs" who are the perpetrators of domestic violence .All types of people from all backgrounds and financial scales are abusers.Surely if we scream about men walking free from a situation like this then we need to allow the police and prosecution servces to handle it how they believe to be the right way.
Twenty years ago my lovely daughter was beaten by a boyfriend ,the neighbour called the police,despite the fact they could see the evidence he got a verbal smack on the wrist,told to go for a walk and calm down .Of course she thought she had overreacted and wouldn't leave him and 2 weeks later he beat her so badly she almost died .I did speak to our local bobby about it and he told me that he personally knew the young man who was an upstanding member of her majesty's forces and he had thought it was just a one off .Sadly him not taking the wee B-- into custody left my daughter with trauma issues and believeing that she should accept being used as a punch bag .
Caroline Flack ,famous or not should have been charged .She should also have got some help to ensure that she wouldn't do it again ,That way she may still be alive .Suicide as they say is a permanent solution to a temporary problem .I fell sad for those who loved her that it ended in this way

Very sad indeed.
However I do hope I’m not the only GNer who’d never heard of her.

So sad. I have also read that she had suffered depression in the past. It could be a case of mental health problems not being addressed. Poor young lady, she must have been tortured.

I’m finding the criticisms of the police/CPS quite illogical and ill informed really. For one thing, we are not in possession of the facts tbat led to the charging decision. People are regularly prosecuted who have mental health problems and imprisoned. We have a criminal justice system on its knees and mental health services likewise. At least CF could have afforded private counselling or whatever help would have been appropriate. We don’t know she wasn’t getting help however. Its not the job of the police to asses someone’s fitness to be charged or to plead - bloody hell, they haven’t got enough time or resources to do the day job properly. The law regarding fitness to plead is very complex quite rightly and such decisions are not to be taken lightly. And it’s not the police who decide to prosecute anyway.

Surely the police can distinguish whether a person is an out and out thug or a vulnerable one ? I could, with half an eye !

ReadyMeals,. it was up to the police to have assessed that no " normal " person acts in this way so instead of pressing ahead with prosecutions etc. they should have had the wherewithal to have got the MH team or even a doctor to look into the situation instead of being so quick to prosecute.
This was a very vulnerable woman who, nobody appeared to have known how to handle.
I just think it's disgraceful that she was put through all this.

Unfortunately it shines a light on the ever growing mental health problems we face, and the woefully inadequate services we have to support people.

It is tragic when anyone decides to take their own life - whether a celebrity or not.

I do feel the focus for young people to be "popular" on social media is worrying. A 16 year old girl told me she thought she was a failure simply because she didn't get many "likes" for her posts.

Many young people are so wrapped up in "social" media that they have a distorted view of what is important.

Sodapop yes the point is that the CPS would have expected the judge to assess the case individually and make allowances for her mental health - that's how it usually works. It's just tragic that she couldn't wait for the outcome, which I think would have been quite lenient to her, after hearing from everyone. After a period of rehab, there is every chance the TV company would have taken her back - it's happened before

Just heard a comment from the CPS who say they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. The public want domestic abusers prosecuted quite rightly so the cases need to be judged individually with consideration for mental health issues etc.

It does seem that the people with the least robust mental health get heavily involved with social media.

EllanVannin, he called the police initially, then the police assessed the scene and decided an offence had been committed. At that stage, they didn't need his confirmation, if they had enough evidence at the scene. Examples of what they could have used if he was not prepared to press charges would have been that he had an injury the shape of a lamp and her fingerprints were on the lamp etc. If they then took it to the CPS, the CPS would have looked at whether the evidence was enough to convict, and then considered if it was in the public interest. At this stage they would have been mindful of the recent interest in the topic of female domestic abusers and may have considered that the public would like to be reassured that men were getting protection too. In this respect Caroline's fame probably was working against her inasmuch as being a "good" example case.

The CPS should not have been involved. If lawmakers can't differentiate between intent and a mental health problem then forces need to be re-trained in what they're dealing with. How many times have police arrested a person and thrown them into a cell only for that person to be found to have MH problems ?

I'm sure many of us remember the story of the elderly blind man with a white stick which police mistook for a sword ? and the result was that the old man was tasered.

Police are too quick in judging at times and to my mind, this Flack case shouldn't have gone to court. Whether the boyfriend pressed charges,I don't know but somehow I doubt he did as only a prosecution would involve the CPS so where/who did the charges come from ? Questions are going to be asked.

Very sad but no more sad than any suicide
Just because she was in the media we are expected to feel more sorry for her. I feel sorry for the mother struggling to support her family, working all the hours god sends

Don’t know of her.....as don’t watch these ‘brain dead’ tv programmes . Feel for her parents and siblings if she has them, but otherwise .....

Tracey Brabin - it was a very long tgread

Who is TB?

Phoebes none of us know the dynamics of their relationship but I think there’s plenty of evidence that the person someone most wants to see in a case like this might well be the last person they should see.

Yes Jis women always suffer disproportionately more. Just look at the level of abuse hurled at women politicians compared with male politicians- and it’s always much more personal and threatening. Look at the Yvette Cooper case last week and poor Diane Abbot and Anna Soubrey. And then Gina Millar. And GN reflects this.Look at the TB thread. I wonder how many people expressing sympathy for CF have sympathy for our females in our political life or do they ‘ask for it’ in a way that a celebrety TV presenter doesn’t ? Piers Morgan is on top form joining in Twitter grief for CF. He gets plenty of support on here but a few weeks ago was tweeting in an almostTrumpian obsessed fashion against MM. My post is not ‘whataboutery’ it’s about how women in the public eye suffer far more than men. But the hypocrisy in this particular case is truly breathtaking.

Ant/Dec were criticised on this forum ,

It is sad when anybody takes their own life without a compelling reason, especially when they have so much life left to live.
However, I had never seen nor heard of this person until this week but as the newspapers are full of the story I must assume I am just out of touch.

I feel so sorry about all this. I expect she thought her career was in ruins and that there was no way forward, even if she was let off with a caution. This has devastated her poor boyfriend, too and he wasn’t allowed to be in touch with her when he was the one person who could have helped. She had a good network of family and friends who loved her, so she must have been a good, if fragile, person. I hope she didn’t read all the comments on social media as this would have made her even more fragile. I can’t understand the people who post vile things, but nobody has to read them.

Really sad. Her poor family and friends I just hope the media leave them alone to grieve in private

Love island is a mindless programme which is staged and most of the contestants are thrown into the limelight and grab their fame to make their money. Teaching all youngsters that fame equals getting easy money or silly money.
What is deeply sad this is the fourth death attached to the show and with poor Caroline it seems a complete mess. Never been arrested before, her career in tatters and unable to speak to her boyfriend, the one person this started with.
One thing that strikes me is Ant/Dec last year got all the support for his drink driving case whereas Caroline has been hung out to dry.