Alice's story
Alice was kind, clever and beautiful. She had an infectious personality and an incredible sense of humour: she saw the fun side of everything. She loved life, loved her friends and loved her job. She had so much to live for. Tragically, Alice was murdered in Gateshead on 12 October 2016, aged just 24.
On 26 April 2017 Trimaan Dhillon was convicted of Alice’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum tariff of 22 years. His controlling behaviour during their brief relationship had developed afterwards into a relentless campaign of stalking.
Remembering Alice
Alice’s family and friends will always remember her for her happy and outgoing personality. She had the ability to cheer anyone up when they were down; she was incredibly quick-witted, a brilliant listener, and genuinely empathetic. She quickly made friends wherever she went.
Alice was the third of the four Ruggles children, and grew up with her sister and brothers in the quiet Leicestershire village of Tur Langton. The family was a close-knit one and Alice always managed to make her presence known, whether by her jokes, her mischievous pranks, or later by the endless banter on the family WhatsApp group. She was a natural entertainer, who could be found not only singing in school concerts but also leading the karaoke at friends’ parties.
For her senior years at school Alice chose to attend Leicester High School for Girls where her mother Sue worked. Making friends was second nature to her and she was popular and successful there, playing a lead role in the school pantomime, performing comic pieces in house events, singing in the chamber choir, and narrowly missing becoming the year group champion on sports day when she fell flat on her face at the start of her final race (something she thought was hilarious). She also helped younger pupils with their Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, helped to organise the school ball … the list is endless.
Having discovered fencing at a PGL camp at age eleven, the sport soon became an important part of Alice’s life. Her chosen weapon was the épée, and she represented her home county of Leicestershire and the East-Midlands region on many occasions; she also enjoyed success on the national fencing circuit. By the time she was eighteen, Alice was selecting potential universities based on the strengths of their fencing clubs, and she duly chose Northumbria, where she became club captain. The proudest of her achievements was winning the Women’s Épée at the Leeds Open in 2012.
Alice stayed in Newcastle after graduation, having come to love the city. Having secured a job at media giant Sky’s Newcastle hub, she was quickly promoted to become site coordinator and personal assistant to the head of sales. One of her colleagues wrote of her: “You know I’m not a man of many words, unless it was badgering you to get my laptop ordered, so I just wanted to list my best memories of you.
- Genuinely, the most horrific Mancunian accent I have ever heard. EVER. Absolutely awful. And hilarious in equal measure.
- You taught me the difference between foil, epee and sabre. I still won’t watch it at the Olympics.
- You are more sarcastic than me.
- Your sense of humour was second to none. So witty and sharp as a tack.
- Last, but definitely not least, you had the most infectious personality and brightened the office on a daily basis. I can genuinely say any day I spoke to you was a happier one for it. You never failed to make me laugh, and I’m a miserable sod. You could even do it via an e-mail…” and the e-mail attached reads “Laptop wait time is directly proportional to how nice you are to me. Therefore yours is due for delivery in 2074. Thanks, Alice”.
10 min read
Controlling behaviour
Early in 2016 Alice began a brief relationship with Trimaan Dhillon, a soldier serving with 2 Scots based at Penicuik, south of Edinburgh. Alice had been introduced to him on-line by a mutual friend while he was serving in a non-combat role in Afghanistan, and they met in January 2016, spending time in Newcastle and Edinburgh before he returned to Afghanistan.
Even then, he was already exhibiting controlling behaviour: always expecting Alice to be available to answer his calls or making snide comments about her appearance in order to undermine her confidence After he returned in April, he started turning up unexpectedly when Alice was socialising with friends, persuading her to go off with him instead, trying to isolate her and make her dependent on him.
The cumulative effect of his behaviour on Alice was marked. She fell out with her housemates and moved to a new ground-floor flat in Gateshead, shared with her work colleague. In a few months, from a happy, outgoing, vibrant person, she had become miserable and lonely. Her work was adversely affected. Her family noticed how withdrawn and unhappy Alice was during a family holiday. It was then that Alice was contacted by another woman whom Dhillon had befriended on a dating website. At learning this, Alice ended the relationship.
Obsessive behaviour
Dhillon was not prepared to accept no for an answer. In the ensuing weeks he bombarded Alice with phone calls, voice messages, texts and emails. Some were pleading; others aggressive and threatening. He also contacted her family and friends, in an effort to persuade Alice to go back to him.
During August and September, Alice received a torrent of messages — texts, emails, and voicemails from different phones and sources. In some of them he professed undying love; in others he used emotional blackmail, crying down the phone or threatening to kill himself.
Dhillon had become obsessed with Alice. At first she tried her best to be pleasant. However, when she began to ignore his messages, he contacted family and friends, trying to get them to influence her.
He had also hacked into her social media, threatening to release compromising photographs he had secretly taken and reading messages in order to know her whereabouts.
In September he found out that Alice had begun a new relationship and set out to destroy it by contacting her new partner directly, painting a false picture and trying to deceive him into thinking that she was two-timing.
The timeline
30 September:
Dhillon would repeatedly arrive at Alice’s property and ring the doorbell and hide when she looked through the spyhole.
On one occasion, he climbed the fence into the back garden and knocked on Alice’s ground-floor window as she lay in bed. When opening the curtains she saw flowers and chocolates on the windowsill and Dhillon backing off. As he drove back to Edinburgh he left a chilling phone message, repeating that he didn’t want to kill her and wouldn’t kill her.
Alice at last contacted the police, who were initially sympathetic and reassuring that he could be stopped. They crimed the incident as harassment and issued a Police Information Notice (PIN). Seven days later, Alice contacted the police again to report he was still harassing her, but the response was less sympathetic. It was not recorded as linked to the previous crime, and no action was taken. Alice was distraught as she now believed that nothing could or would be done to stop his stalking. A further five days after this, Dhillon broke into her flat and brutally murdered her.
At sentencing, the judge remarked: “You went to her flat. She was alone that night and what you did will have terrified her. You knocked on the door on three separate occasions, each time slipping away—and then you climbed over the wall into the rear yard and knocked on a bedroom window as Miss Ruggles lay in her bed. She looked out of the window to see you backing off having left flowers and chocolates. As might be expected, she was shaken and scared by that incident. You then left a voicemail message telling her repeatedly that you did not intend to kill her. You were harassing her. You were stalking her. You were destroying her.”
That night Alice called 101. As is evident from the recording of the phone call, which is in the public domain, she was calm and polite, almost apologetic. The officer explained that she could go to a solicitor and take out an injunction, or that the police could issue a Police Information Notice (PIN) “which means if he ever comes near you again or contacts you again, he’ll be arrested. So which would you prefer?” to which Alice can be heard replying “Can I try that option please?”
Alice believed herself to be protected and had regained her old self-confidence. Actually, a PIN notice carries no legal weight. They are no longer used in stalking cases.
3 October:
Meanwhile, the police warning was communicated to Dhillon in his barracks, by his army superiors, on 3 October. Colleagues, friends, and even a general practitioner had also told him not to contact Alice. Despite all this, he immediately sent her a parcel containing a letter and some other items. The letter complained that she had “called the police on him” and that he was now facing the repercussions, including that they had shut him in a room and taken away his laptop, iPad and phone (all of which was a lie). He went on: “I’m in a lot of s**t now but hope you feel happy now … I’m sending you everything I have that reminds me of you as you belong to another man. Wishing you two a happy life. I will never come in your life again.”
7 October:
Alice received the parcel and rang the police again to report it. But this time she was made to feel that arresting Dhillon was not a possible option and that she was wasting police time. There is no recording of this phone call.
All of a sudden, Alice realised that she was not being protected at all. She tried to make sure she was driven home to the front door each day by a colleague and immediately double-locked it. On 10 October, unbeknown to Alice, Dhillon drove down to her house after dark, climbed into the back garden and photographed the rear window.
12 October:
Dhillon drove down again from Edinburgh and parked near to Alice’s flat, waiting for her to return home. While waiting he was messaging another woman, trying to arrange a meeting later that evening back up in Scotland. Around 6pm, Dhillon climbed in again over the back wall and this time forced his way in through a window. He picked up a sharp kitchen knife and cornered Alice in the bathroom. Twenty minutes later she was lying dead there. Her flatmate Maxine returned shortly afterwards and found her.
Thanks to Maxine’s information and swift action by Northumbria police, Dhillon was arrested back at his barracks just a few hours later, as he was attempting to climb out over the wall. He initially denied all knowledge of Alice’s death but overwhelming evidence quickly placed him at the scene. In court Dhillon was not only unemotional, but also exhibited breathtaking arrogance. He denied murder and tried to argue that Alice had attacked him, but the jury rejected this and he was sentenced to life imprisonment for Alice’s murder, with a minimum tariff of 22 years.
The signs of stalking
Alice did not realise the very real danger that she was in. Nor was this fully recognised by her family, her friends or the police.
Sadly, Alice’s story is not a one-off. It is a typical story illustrating the link between coercive behaviour and stalking. During their brief relationship, Alice had always thought that Dhillon had looked out for her, but the reality was that he had always been trying to manipulate her as well as her friends and family. He made negative comments about her personal appearance to undermine her confidence. He stoked up minor disagreements between her friends and persuaded her that she was better without them. He sent messages to her mother telling her what a horrible person her daughter was. All the time he emphasised to Alice herself how much he cared about her and would look after her.
In a few short months, Alice had lost much of her self-confidence and felt she had no friends left. Once she split from him and started to take control again she began to return to her old self. This was the point where Trimaan Dhillon’s coercive control turned to stalking.
Many ex-partners will exhibit stalking-type behaviour to try and win their partners back and not all of them will become obsessive. When warned by the police, around 50% of stalkers will immediately stop the behaviour, but the ones that do not, like Dhillon, can be extremely dangerous. Stalking, in these cases, is murder in slow motion.
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We exist to raise awareness of stalking (including coercive control), to ensure that relevant legislation is effective and adhered to, and to bring about lasting improvements in the management of perpetrators and the protection of victims.
The Alice Ruggles Trust is member of the National Stalking Consortium.
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