Specialist calls for investigation into Demi Hannaway death

Scotland’s most senior prosecutor should urgently order an investigation into the sudden death of Demi Hannaway in 2021, according to a cold case specialist.

Gerry Gallacher, who helped identify Emma Caldwell’s killer 10 years after her unsolved murder, urged the Lord Advocate to trigger a police inquiry into Demi’s death.

Dorothy Bain, Scotland’s most senior prosecutor, will meet Demi’s parents, Helen and John, on Friday and, Gallacher said, should use the meeting to confirm an inquiry into their daughter’s death.

Officers almost immediately decided she had taken her own life at her home in Airdrie in May 2021 after accepting the account of her partner, Andrew Brown, despite his documented history of domestic violence and a series of other red flags.

Gallacher, a former police detective, helped expose Iain Packer as a forgotten suspect in the Emma Caldwell murder inquiry in 2015, 10 years after her death.

Packer was finally convicted of her murder and 32 other offences, including 11 rapes, involving 21 other women, last year.

‘Demi and her family have been failed’

After reviewing the circumstances of Demi’s death, the statements of Demi’s parents, and their formal complaint to Police Scotland detailing 32 alleged failures in officers’ response, Gallacher believes an investigation must be ordered immediately.

He said: “Demi Hannaway died almost four years ago and the investigation into her death was so clearly inadequate that no more time is needed to begin a proper inquiry.

“Demi’s parents’ concerns about the failures of officers responding to their daughter’s death are detailed, clear and, seem to me, justified.

“Demi and her family have been failed and her death demands serious and urgent investigation, albeit four years late.”

Gallacher said the actions of officers arriving at Demi’s home on the morning of May 13, 2021 are bewildering.

Demi’s parents John and Helen Simpson at home in Airdrie.

He said: “Those officers had only one job, to protect the scene of Demi’s death until satisfied no crime had been committed.

“It should by now go without saying that the sudden death of any young woman in her home when she had been alone with her partner demands investigation.

“Police know this and officers are told nothing should be assumed when responding to such deaths and the location must be secured as a potential crime scene.

“Officers’ failure to do so and their willingness to immediately accept the account of Demi’s death given by a partner with a history of violence against her seem hard to understand.

“The first response officers failed to do their job but so too did their superiors. Checks and balances are built into procedures to help ensure critical decisions are questioned and reviewed.

“Where were those checks and balances that morning and in the days that followed?

“When did they realise Demi’s partner had a history of abuse and why, at that point, did someone not press pause and ask for officers to regroup and reassess?”.

Demi Hannaway case – read more:

Demi’s parents do not believe she took her own life and believe the claim that she tied bin bags together to hang herself from a window fitting is outlandish. In addition, her father John tested the fitting and does not believe it could have held his daughter’s weight.

Gallacher said: “Certainly, in 30 years as a police officer, I never encountered that method of suicide.

“Plastic bags stretch when stressed and window fittings will not carry a lot of weight. That does not make it impossible but it makes it unusual and should have raised yet another flag for responding officers.

“Again, they did not have to decide anything immediately and only had to secure the scene pending investigation.

“It seems the only forensic tests done in relation to Demi’s death were conducted by her own family.

“It was also her family who found her mobile phone, smashed with the sim card removed, long after police had left the house.”

Abhorrent threats and abuse from Brown were later found by Demi’s family on her social media and would lead to his conviction last year on abuse charges unrelated to her death.

Andy Brown was sentenced to jail for attacks on Demi Hannaway. — Andrew Brown.

Gallacher said: “Attending officers do not appear to have conducted even a cursory search.

“There would appear to have been no attempt to identify anything that might illuminate events leading to Demi’s death, to support, or contradict, the account given to them. Officers then left the scene after a few hours, presumably with the permission of their superiors.

“It is baffling and difficult to understand.

“Any sudden death should be raised at morning briefings attended by senior officers when incidents of note are examined and discussed.

“Did no one, at a supervisory level or senior investigative level, consider the circumstances here demanded some level of scrutiny or that, as a bare minimum, the account of her partner should be properly tested in an interview with detectives at a police office?

“Demi’s family are naturally seeking answers and remain confused and bemused that their daughter’s death demanded so little police attention or investigation.

“They are not the only ones.”

Murder expert says there are eight indicators which alert police to ‘staged homicide’ and Demi’s death hits every one

One of the world’s top experts in staged homicide is calling on Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain to order a new investigation into the death of Demi Hannaway.

Professor Jane Monckton-Smith believes the case has “all the indicators of a staged homicide”.

She said: “The Lord Advocate has the opportunity end the hundreds of missed homicides of abused women by supporting the changes that need to be brought in, starting with the death of Demi Hannaway.

“I hope she orders a new investigation into this young mother’s death, and restore confidence in Scotland’s criminal justice system.

“This case highlights why so many abuse victims are dying.

“The police are missing opportunities to identify and investigate domestic homicides.

“There are eight internationally recognised indicators which should alert police to a staged homicide.

“Demi’s death hits every single one.

“Instead of doubling down and refusing to move from their initial decision that this was a suicide, Police Scotland need to learn from their mistake and instigate a new investigation into this case.

“Up until now, there has been no homicide investigation.

“Instead, officers who previously attended Demi’s home over domestic abuse incidents appear to have taken the word of a known abuser rather than follow the protocol you would use in a suspected homicide.”

She said: “From the moment Police Scotland arrived at Demi’s home, they did not appear to treat it as a possible crime scene.

“The very first thing that should have been done was to secure the scene, and seeing the signs that were found by Demi’s parents later such as clumps of her hair, blood on walls, and the demeanour of a known domestic abuser, detectives and forensic teams should have been brought in immediately.

“I cannot say whether Andrew Brown was responsible for Demi’s death because I did not have access to the scene. But from what we do know, he should have been treated as a potential suspect rather than the grieving partner he appears to have been.

“His abusive past towards Demi, the fact he was known to have previously strangled her and attacked her, should have been taken into account.

“Brown’s reticence over letting the police into their home, should have been an immediate red flag. He had time to stage the scene.

“He was alone with Demi’s body on two occasions, before he raised the alarm with a neighbour and when he went back inside before the police arrived on the scene around 45 minutes later.

“There were many discrepancies to his story.

“His admission to police that he spat on her face after he claimed finding her hanged should have been a huge red flag, particularly given history of spitting in her face as he strangled her previously.

“It looks to me that the police arrived at this scene and immediately believed a known domestic abuser that his partner had taken her own life. There appears to be little or no evidence of any investigation.

“That impacted every aspect of this case and everyone associated with it, including the pathologist, who wasn’t made aware of Brown’s history of strangulation and domestic abuse.

“Police Scotland have now doubled down and are now investigating themselves instead of Demi’s death.

“It’s shameful.

“We all deserve so much more from our police.”

The professor believes despite the four-year gap, Demi’s death could still be properly investigated and the case solved.

“For the sake of her family, for her children, for everyone who loved her, I am calling on the Lord Advocate to make the right decision. Order a new investigation immediately!”

Lord Advocate must act with same clarity shown in Packer case

By Jim Wilson, former editor of The Sunday Post

Meet the family. The three little words that have come to mean nothing at all for ministers. Failed and grieving families seeking answers from the Scottish Government are now routinely invited to Edinburgh where, instead of justice, they are offered tea, sympathy and apologies.

To them, the meetings can seem significant, a validation of their concerns and a step towards some kind of justice. To ministers, however, it seems these chats are often a box ticked, a chore done and another file quietly closed.

On Friday, the Lord Advocate will meet the parents of Demi Hannaway almost four years after their daughter died in her home, a sudden death immediately judged a suicide by police despite raising every possible red flag.

Dorothy Bain, Scotland’s most senior prosecutor, is liked and respected by other lawyers. She is skilled and professional, they say, and committed to helping ensure women and girls are better protected against the violence of men.

Good to know, but she can prove it on Friday? She has history because, in an exception that proves the rule, Bain met the mother of Emma Caldwell just 20 days after taking office in July 2021.

By then, Police Scotland and the Crown Office had spent six stultifying years reinvestigating Emma’s murder after a prime but forgotten suspect was exposed in 2015, 10 years after her death.

The inquiry was going nowhere and was, in truth, a pantomime of delay and deflection as police and prosecutors prolonged the grief for Emma’s family.

But, after years of inertia and inaction, Bain changed the tone on a sixpence, bringing new commitment to a calcified investigation. It still took another three years before Iain Packer would be jailed for 36 years for Emma’s murder and 32 assaults, including 11 rapes, on 21 other women but, without Bain, one of Scotland’s most violent and dangerous men would likely still be free.

In 2015, almost two long months after Packer was exposed in The Sunday Mail, the patience of then Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland snapped as he told Police Scotland to get a grip, do its job and reopen the inquiry.

On Friday, Bain must act with the same clarity and instruct the national force to properly and urgently investigate what happened on the night Demi died.

There is no need for more reviews, discussion or deliberation because, over recent weeks, this newspaper has clearly and comprehensively detailed the absolute failure of police – and prosecutors – to properly investigate in 2021. It will not even be a new inquiry, a reinvestigation, because there never was an investigation.

Demi’s parents should not be asked to wait another minute for it to begin.

Jim Wilson is also a former editor of The Sunday Mail