Caroline Flack Dead

Tracey Brabin - it was a very long tgread

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 .....

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

There must have been a lot of evidence even if they both denied the assault as the CPS let many more cases go it’s really hard to get them to take a case through unless they are pretty sure they will get a positive result
It’s a real shame, and she must have been in a real bad place even before the assault she sounded quite uncontrollable that night
Jeremy Kyle was pulled immediately one man committed suicide (quite right) I m amazed that after was it two or three suicides Love Island is still being shown surely it must go now My teenage grandkids (girls) all watch it and are really into it (unfortunately) they get really excite when a new series starts I hope we ve seen the end of it for good

I think one has to be pretty unbalanced in the first place to even apply to go on one of these reality shows

Two good posts Sue and Ready. If a person is judged fit to plead ( and as I said it’s a very complex decision with rightly a very high bar) the trial goes ahead. Their mental state might be relevant to degree of culpability ( again a high bar) and would be taken into account at the sentencing stage. ( following a psychiatric evaluation).

i haven't seen Caroline Flack on TV for many years...she was a presenter on I am A Celeb etc.....
I can't see why the CPS had to prosecute except that she is female and they wanted to make an example of her.
As others are saying she clearly had mental Health issues and they should have left her alone.
Her boyfriend wasn't allowed to be near her, bail terms I think.
She was 40 years old, not really a young woman, but clearly a vulnerable woman and I think she has been bullied by the CPS.
I see enough examples on TV documentaries like 24 Hours in Police Custody to know how hard Police usually have to work to get them/CPS to say yes to prosecuting. When a man attacks a woman.
I hope this is more deeply investigated.

For pity’s sake pink so we shouldn’t prosecute perpetrators of domestic abuse who have ( or may have) mental health problems? Or any one guilty of any crime with a mental health problem? That’ll work well.

And of course no one locked up in our dreadful prisons was vulnerable at all when prosecuted were they? Just not celebrities I expect.

Well that's the point pinkquartz. Due to the documentaries you mention, there was a public outcry so the CPS started responding to that by being more vigorous about domestic abuse. That's what they meant by damned if they do and if they don't

And I certainly damned them when they didn’t ?