The daughter of the woman whose real-life killing inspired Channel 4’s gripping drama The Jury: Murder Trial has told how her mother was ‘failed by the justice system’.
Last month TV viewers were gripped by the social experiment in which two juries of 12 men and women — each completely unaware of the other’s existence — were asked to watch the same criminal trial and reach a conclusion.
Although names and locations were changed, the evidence presented in court followed exactly the murder trial of Thomas Crompton who half strangled, then bludgeoned his 34-year-old wife of only a few months, Angela Phillips, to death with a hammer in a brutal attack at the cottage they shared in Arminghall, Norwich, in 2012.
Crompton, now 50, succeeded in convincing the jury to find him guilty of manslaughter, rather than murder, on the controversial grounds of ‘loss of control’, for which he was jailed for seven and a half years, serving half that time.
Angela’s daughter Hollie, 28, told that the programme, which she and her family welcomed, nevertheless opened up old wounds.
‘The problem wasn’t the jury, but the justice system itself,’ she said.
Angela Phillips, was bludgeoned to death by her husband in a brutal attack at the cottage they shared in Arminghall, Norwich, in 2012
Thomas Crompton, now 50, succeeded in convincing the jury to find him guilty of manslaughter, rather than murder
Angela’s daughter Hollie, 28, told that her mother was failed by the justice system
Hollie was a schoolgirl of just 16 when the killing took place. She and her two younger siblings were living a few miles away in Norwich with their father, who split from Angela several years earlier.
The manslaughter verdict left Angela’s family devastated.
‘Thomas Crompton painted himself as a victim when he gave evidence and sobbed before the jury while at the same time blackening my mother’s name, making her out to be the one responsible,’ said Hollie.
‘He was allowed character witnesses and gave evidence himself, but was no-one speaking up for her; she didn’t have anyone fighting her corner.’
Hollie and her relatives thought long and hard about giving their blessing to the Channel 4 programme, but co-operated because they welcomed the chance to air their frustration with the way the real trial went.
Hollie was a schoolgirl of just 16 when the killing took place. Baby Hollie and Angela pictured together
Hollie and her relatives thought long and hard about giving their blessing to the Channel 4 programme. Hollie pictured as a child with her mother
Hollie pictured as a child with her mother. Now 28, Hollie said the depiction of her mother in the programme was one-sided
Interestingly the TV experiment showed the vagaries of the jury system as the two separate juries returned opposing verdicts on the same evidence – one finding the fictional defendant guilty of murder, the other only of manslaughter.
In Crompton’s case, he testified that when a furious row about decorating escalated, he put both hands around Angela’s throat and recalled her lips turning blue.
Then he stopped, picked up a heavy industrial hammer and proceeded to cave in her skull, striking her at least three times.
Crompton initially claimed he couldn’t remember where he found the hammer from.
Channel 4’s The Jury: Murder Trial saw two juries of 12 men and women — each completely unaware of the other’s existence — asked to watch the same criminal trial and reach a conclusion
Interestingly the TV experiment showed the vagaries of the jury system as the two separate juries returned opposing verdicts on the same evidence
But crucially, under cross-examination, he accepted that the prosecution could be correct that he left the house, walked a few minutes to the foundry, picked up the hammer and returned, as they put it, to ‘bash her brains in’.
She died a few days later in Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge.
Angela’s family were shocked when they heard the ‘loss of control’ defence.
‘This wasn’t a split second thing,’ said Hollie. ‘How long does it take for someone to pass out when you’re strangling them – a couple of minutes?
‘Then he goes and picks up a hammer and comes back – it’s a conscious decision, how is that ‘loss of control’?’
Hollie said that back in 2012 when Crompton’s manslaughter plea was explained to her and other family members by police and prosecution lawyers, they were assured the case for murder was ‘very strong’.
But the depiction of Angela Phillips in the trials (real and televised) was nothing short of scathing. She was painted as violent, manipulative and deeply troubled, taunting her husband about former lovers, and insulting him about his appearance and his weight.
A psychiatrist suggested she had borderline personality disorder. The comments from inside the TV jury room were even more extreme, and included ‘monster’, ‘nut-nut’ and ‘what a bitch’.
Hollie said: ‘This negative slant on my mother’s mental health painted an awful picture of her when in fact she was no more ‘unstable’ than anyone else.
‘Women are often portrayed as ‘unstable’ or ‘crazy’ in cases like this, where this kind of language is used against the victim.
‘I think that back then in 2012, mental health was viewed so much less seriously and less sympathetically than in today’s society.’
Hollie said back in 2012 when Crompton’s manslaughter plea was explained to her they were assured the case for murder was ‘very strong’
Hollie couldn’t bring herself to watch the programme and relive the horrific experience
One TV juror even suggested the victim had been ‘asking for it’ and another, having heard Crompton’s evidence from the dock spoken by an actor, told fellow jurors in tears that she ‘wanted to hug him’ because she, too had been taunted about her weight.
Hollie couldn’t bring herself to watch the programme and relive the horrific experience of losing her mother aged only 16, and then watching her killer receive a ‘derisory’ sentence after shredding her reputation from the witness box, but she has read reports about it.
‘The knock-on effect on me and my family of him receiving such a short sentence has been massive – and we’re supposed to accept that verdict because someone felt bad when he cried in court?
‘When the real trial was going on, we kept asking the lawyers when our family would be able to give evidence to set the record straight,’ recalled Hollie.
‘We were fobbed off by being told it was a strong murder case, and not to worry, but for whatever reason we never got that chance.
‘There were people who had given witness statements including her mother and her friends, but they were never called.
‘It’s made me think that this kind of victim-blaming happens a lot in murder trials, particularly where it’s a woman killed by a man. How is that allowed to happen?
‘The defence ‘game plan’, for want of a better word, was clearly character assassination, to paint my mother in the worst light possible, which obviously massively influenced the jury.
‘The jury wouldn’t be able to tell, as they didn’t know her character at all, so they got a completely distorted version. But she wasn’t the person described to them – she was a brilliant, fun mother, she was lovely and lively. She was a sister, she was a daughter, but none of that was said.
‘She was born to be a mother and always told me the thing she did best in life was being a parent.’
But none of that came out in the evidence and instead Crompton was allowed to paint himself as the victim.
‘The trial was a perfect like case of victim blaming and the unfair systemic gender bias discrimination in the justice system just always the unfair representation of women especially when they are victims.’
Hollie said that the depiction of Crompton in the court case was also one-sided.
‘There was another side to him also,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine, and if her friends’ statements had been heard in court, that was there.’
Hollie lost her mother when she was aged only 16
Though she’s reluctant to comment fully on Crompton, who has now rebased to Suffolk, where he is working again as a sculptor, Hollie said: ‘There was unhappiness, and there was possessiveness on his side. To me the relationship never felt like it was authentic – there was always just something off about him.
When he was released after just four years, which was crazy, I was still only 20 or 21, and I remember being constantly on edge, living in a small town as we did, that I might run into him. Thankfully I never did.
‘It hugely affected my mental health with anxiety and depression for a long time and I moved to London and find it hard to return to Norwich as sometimes the bad memories outshine the good ones.’
Now a successful beauty therapist in London, Hollie and her family hope some good can come from the tragic loss of her mother.
Ironically, ‘loss of control’, introduced in 2010, was partly aimed at allowing female victims of domestic violence more access to justice,
The defence of ‘provocation’, which it replaced, was considered to have a gender bias towards male defendants who sought to use it when they had killed as a result of simply losing their temper whereas women who killed out of a fear of serious violence could not use it because it required the provocation to be ‘sudden’ and ‘temporary’.
Angela’s trial may have worsened her family’s anguish, but one enduring legacy from her death has been the worldwide ‘Ask for Angela’ initiative which sprang from her death.
The idea was the brainchild of a campaigner against sexual violence in neighbouring Lincolnshire, who knew of Angela’s death through a mutual friend.
It has since been taken up all over Britain and as far afield as the United States, New Zealand and Argentina, means that women (and men) who feel unsafe or threatened in bars and clubs can ask bar staff ‘for Angela’, a fictitious colleague and will then help them get home safely by calling a cab.
Hollie said she took some comfort from that: ‘It means that anyone who’s vulnerable can easily ask for help and I’m glad that’s a good thing that came from my mother’s death. Now I’d like to see the justice system take a look at itself and come up with a way to address the problem of victim-blaming and gender bias.’