Overview
- Paramedics found 61-year-old Kelly Faiers dead at her partner’s home in Minehead after an ambulance was called on October 15, 2023.
- A pathologist concluded Faiers died from the combined effects of alcohol and diphenhydramine but said toxicology cannot confirm how tablets were taken or exclude spiking.
- Messages shown at the inquest reveal Richard Scatchard pressured Faiers to take multiple tablets and made highly sexualised comments about having sex with her while unconscious.
- Police first treated the death as non-suspicious and did not arrest Scatchard, who vanished the next day and whose body was later found in Watchet; a watchdog later judged the force’s service to the family unacceptable.
- Scatchard’s long history of drugging and sexual assault, his release on a life licence in 2013, and the inquest’s unresolved questions are driving renewed scrutiny of offender supervision and police procedures.