Kiena Dawes wrote 11 devastating words when abusive ex was released after brutal assault
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A woman who had finally plucked up the courage to press charges against her abusive boyfriend was shocked when he was released just hours later. Kiena Dawes even said that she spent longer in hospital than Ryan Wellings spent in the cells after leaving her face pouring with blood. Just 11 days later she took her own life, unable to continue being tortured physically and mentally by the father of her nine-month-old baby girl.
The hairdresser from Fleetwood, Lancashire, was so scared of Wellings that it was only when he brutally assaulted her in front of their baby that she finally backed efforts to prosecute him. She went to police and they took photographs of her injuries, including ones on her face. Even then, police granted Wellings bail and then failed to lock him up when he apparently breached his bail conditions.
She would write in a message shortly before she killed herself: "I was in hospital longer than he was in the cells." The 23-year-old left a suicide note naming Wellings as her murderer, and yesterday a jury found him not guilty of manslaughter in an historic case at Preston Crown Court. He was convicted of assault and of coercive and controlling behaviour and will be sentenced on Thursday.
The trial was told Wellings carried out a prolonged campaign of abuse against Kiena before she was found dead on a railway track near Garstang, in Lancashire, in July 2022. She had vanished earlier that day after leaving her daughter with a friend. She suffered multiple injuries when she was struck by a Glasgow-bound train travelling at 110 mph.
