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A mother of three was found dead in the home of a serial sex offender, but police failed to arrest him as they did not initially consider it ‘suspicious’, an inquest has heard.
Kelly Faiers, 61, was discovered by paramedics in Minehead, Somerset, on October 15 2023, after her partner, convicted predator Richard Scatchard, called an ambulance to the property.
The 70-year-old had been convicted of a string of offences throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including rape, indecent assault, attempted kidnap and drugging his victims.
Yet officers who attended the scene failed to arrest him and the next day he vanished, leading to a manhunt which ended when his body was found in a caravan weeks later.
The police watchdog last year concluded Avon and Somerset Police provided an ‘unacceptable’ level of service to Ms Faiers’s family over her suspected killing.
An inquest into her death today heard that her rapist partner had been using the fake name Richard Dunlop during a romantic relationship that had lasted several months.
Ms Faiers was said to be looking for a way out of the relationship before her death.
Somerset Coroners Court heard how Scatchard had been convicted of preying upon four women, all of whom he met online or through ‘lonely hearts’ adverts.
When he felt the relationship with his victims was coming to an end, he drugged and sexually assaulted them, taking videos and photos of his abuse while they were unconscious.
He was jailed for life in 2001, but became eligible for parole after just five years and four months and was ultimately released in 2013 on a life licence.
The court heard Scatchard first took up residence in Cheshire, where he entered a six-year relationship with a female partner, a relationship which was declared to police and probation, both of which had contact with his then girlfriend.
It is understood that relationship broke down before Scatchard relocated to Minehead in 2020 when he met Ms Faiers.
Kelly Faiers, 61, was discovered by paramedics in Minehead, Somerset, on October 15 2023, after her partner, convicted predator Richard Scatchard, called an ambulance to the property
Richard Scatchard, 70, had been convicted of a string of offences throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including rape, indecent assault, attempted kidnap and drugging his victims
Despite Scatchard’s history of drugging, raping and abusing women, when police arrived at the scene of Ms Faiers’s death, they failed to make an arrest after deciding the circumstances were not suspicious.
Ms Faiers’s family were told that she had died a ‘sudden death’ and they should contact the coroner.
Police returned to the property the following day, but with the intention of checking on Scatchard’s welfare, rather than to arrest him.
Scatchard was not found at the property and police put out a statement expressing concern for his welfare.
It was not until November that police told either the public or Ms Faiers’s family that Scatchard was now wanted in connection with a murder investigation. Her children described how they had to learn of his criminal history from Google.
On the first day of the inquest, a toxicologist report found that Ms Faiers died as a result of alcohol and Diphenhydramine use.
Diphenhydramine, an over-the-counter antihistamine, is also used as a sleeping aid and is associated with coma and death in large doses.
Messages between Scatchard and Ms Faiers revealed the rapist had been pressuring her to take as many as ten tablets at once and had expressed his interest in having sex with her while she was unconscious.
Friends of Ms Faiers, with whom she shared stories of Scatchard, said she wanted to leave him, was not interested in Scatchard’s fantasies, and was now seeing a new romantic partner, a bus driver.
On hearing news of her death, her manager at Bristol Airport, where she worked, said he was ‘shocked but not surprised’ after Ms Faiers revealed Scatchard was trying to coax her into taking drugs until she fell unconscious so he could have sexual intercourse with her.
She had vowed to colleagues, on their insistence, that she would end the relationship, leaving them ‘relieved’, the court heard. But it appears she agreed to meet Scatchard again and was ultimately found dead at his Minehead home.
In the weeks before her death, Ms Faiers was said to have come to work with a black eye, telling colleagues she had fallen onto a table, and telling her daughters she had walked into a filing cabinet while staying at Scatchard’s property.
The inquest continues.