The coroner said she concluded from the evidence that Semina was “highly vulnerable” but she did not agree with submissions from the family that Merseyside Police, Semina’s school, health trusts and Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council had breached their operational duties to her, meaning the inquest could engage Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Speaking after the hearing, Semina’s mother Rachel Halliwell said: “I’m feeling a deep range of emotions, an enormous dissatisfaction that failures by the agencies involved in Semina’s care have not been acknowledged.
Semina Halliwell died in hospital on June 12 2021 following an overdose of prescription medication taken at the family home in Southport, Merseyside, on June 9, months after she reported she had been sexually assaulted by an older boy.
She said: “The evidence has not revealed to me any indication that a real and immediate risk to Semina’s life was known to any of the state agencies at any relevant point in time which would have made her death preventable.”.
The inquest, which was held at Bootle Town Hall for six days last month, heard that in March 2021, Semina told her mother she had been sexually assaulted by an older boy in January that year.
