Murder UK S1E1

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:10][music] >> I'm David Wilson, emeritus professor of criminology, and I've spent decades studying the phenomenon of murder and what might motivate someone to kill.

[00:00:24]>> [music] >> My research suggests that whilst all murders are unique, they do indeed share some common deadly characteristics.

[00:00:38]Together, let's delve into some of the most chilling murder cases from across the UK [music] and expose the reality behind this most terrible of crimes.

[00:00:52]This is Murder UK.

[00:01:05]A bird's-eye view of an ordinary town, which in 2019 saw an extraordinary love story [music] involving a man called Wayne Coventry.

[00:01:15]A man close to his family.

[00:01:18]I was quite overprotective of Wayne.

[00:01:21]I was nine when he was born.

[00:01:24]And I loved it.

[00:01:25]Having a little brother.

[00:01:29]Always got a small on his face. Like a Cheshire cat.

[00:01:33]I've never known anyone smile so much, to be fair.

[00:01:37]He just always had a grin on his face.

[00:01:43]He was bubbly and a normal child.

[00:01:48]He [music] used to make us laugh a lot.

[00:01:51]And as he grew up, he still used to make us laugh.

[00:01:56]Occasionally, the brothers overstepped the mark.

[00:02:00]I've done something wrong when I was younger.

[00:02:03]I've nicked loads of archery equipment.

[00:02:06]Police come out and search my mom and dad's house.

[00:02:11]Stolen some bows.

[00:02:14]And they hid them behind the shed in the garden.

[00:02:18]Police couldn't find nothing. They're just about to leave and then my little brother popped up and goes, "They'll be all in the shed."

[00:02:24]>> [laughter] >> Obviously, that was it.

[00:02:27]Yeah, got nicked there and then on the spot. And that's one thing that always stuck in me mind.

[00:02:33]He got away with it until >> [music] >> he opened his mouth.

[00:02:41]As a teenager, Wayne falls for a local girl.

[00:02:45]According to older brother Shawn, they have a good relationship.

[00:02:50]The first girl he went out with, he was with her for roughly 18 years.

[00:02:55]He was like a one-woman man, which was really good. When he was with someone, [music] he he was devoted to them.

[00:03:01]He was only 16, I think, when they had their first child.

[00:03:05]They ended up with three children, a girl then a boy and then a girl again.

[00:03:10]He did love the kids' mom [music] to bits. Always had done.

[00:03:14]His kids meant the world to him. He absolutely adored them.

[00:03:22]They lived together and they moved down garden together.

[00:03:27]Yeah, he moved out with his partner and his kids.

[00:03:31]Didn't seem fair to us after that.

[00:03:34]They were great together until I don't know exactly what. I think they just petered out.

[00:03:41]In June 2017, the end of the relationship marks a painful turning point for Wayne as he faces the reality of leaving his children 200 miles behind.

[00:03:53]Then obviously we moved back, moved up to Bromsgrove.

[00:03:57]Yeah, these children stay with him weekends and stuff like that.

[00:04:01]He doted on his children. His kids meant the world to him. He missed them when he weren't around them.

[00:04:15]Wayne will have been dramatically impacted by losing the the family that he built up [music] in his first relationship.

[00:04:24]This is somebody whose main purpose in life is now gone. It's somebody who now needs a strong figure, a dominant [music] figure, somebody to lead him, give him direction.

[00:04:37]That somebody would be Cordelia, sometimes known as Delia Farrell. Wayne told me once or twice he'd been speaking with Cordelia.

[00:04:49]They lived in the same area.

[00:04:51]So they'd have bumped into each other.

[00:04:55]He brought her up here. Had Sunday dinner and that.

[00:04:59]I mean they were quite funny as a couple as well.

[00:05:02]My brother used to have this hot sauce that I don't know where he used to get it from, but it's the hottest thing I've ever tasted in my life and they used to play each other up. I mean they're doing my Sunday dinner and that. My brother's coming and got it. And he squirted it into the roaster.

[00:05:16]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, he seemed very happy.

[00:05:20]You just fall for that one person.

[00:05:23]Yeah, he did.

[00:05:25]He proper fell for her.

[00:05:27]There was no getting him away from each other. He absolutely thought the world of her.

[00:05:32]To start with, he did introduce me to her and we did talk.

[00:05:39]Wayne and Cordelia were mostly laughing together and enjoying each other's company, but then there was them that part of her that just was totally different.

[00:05:53]I took an instant dislike to her with her attitude and everything.

[00:05:57]She used to hide from me. I mean, locking herself in the toilet or in the bedroom just cuz I was there. It was ridiculous. I mean, I've never harmed a female. She couldn't think that I'd knock her about or anything. I've never hit a female in my life, so I used to think it was stupid. Every time Wayne's father visits, we have Cordelia hiding, staying well out of the way.

[00:06:23]For me, it's as if she doesn't want to fully understand Wayne. She doesn't want to hear more about Wayne, to meet his family because to do so would humanize Wayne. And at the moment, Wayne is just playing a particular role, a particular character within a melodrama that I think the two of them have created.

[00:06:45]Sometimes they could be excellent together.

[00:06:48]When they got on, they did get on.

[00:06:50]But then when they didn't, it was bad.

[00:06:55]Cordelia's behavior can in part be explained by the fact that she was diagnosed with an underlying personality disorder. And the personality disorder that she got diagnosed as having was emotionally unstable personality disorder, which used to be in my day called borderline personality disorder, the borderline between neurosis and psychosis. But in lay person's terms, what that means is simply you're riding an emotional roller coaster with somebody that has >> [music] >> this diagnosis. They're volatile, they're self-destructive, and that's partly because they have no sense of self. And so some days they're really kind, some days they're really pleasant to be around, and the very [music] next day, sometimes within an hour, they can be a completely different personality.

[00:07:48]Because they have no fixed sense of who they are. And of course, if you're riding a roller coaster emotionally, some days you want to love and care.

[00:08:01]But the very next day, you might want to kill.

[00:08:06]With Cordelia knowing that Wayne was a decent chap wanting a loving relationship, this gave Cordelia the upper hand.

[00:08:15]It gave her the opportunity to control that relationship.

[00:08:19]If he went anywhere, she'd have to know where or why.

[00:08:23]She didn't want him being around other women.

[00:08:26]Even though he weren't into other women when he was with someone, he weren't that kind of person, Wayne wasn't. But Cordelia obviously thought he was.

[00:08:35]Wayne might not have been that type of person, but he does begin to make up stories of affairs with other women, which triggers Cordelia's jealous streak.

[00:08:45]There was a jealous streak with Cordelia as well, which is extremely worrying.

[00:08:49]And surprising, really, when you think if if Wayne doted on her that much, why would she be jealous? Because he's the one for her.

[00:08:57]If she didn't want him doing something, she'd stop him.

[00:09:01]Kind of paints a picture of this controlling coercive behavior by Cordelia.

[00:09:06]Stopped him doing a lot of things and seeing a lot of family members.

[00:09:09]Very controlling.

[00:09:21]During this time, Wayne has few pleasures in life. Wayne loved his motorbike, he loved them.

[00:09:28]Always tinkering about with cars or bikes, he was.

[00:09:32]45 it was, bikes. He loved his bikes, Wayne.

[00:09:37]>> [music] >> He he loved his motorbike. He got it while he was living down Devon.

[00:09:44]Then, one day, the motorbike [music] is stolen.

[00:09:48]And so, he wanted stolen, his motorbike, and they dismantled it.

[00:09:53]They found it further up the road in a alleyway, dismantled.

[00:09:59]Around this time, luck just didn't seem to be on his side. So, he never got to ride the bike again.

[00:10:10]Those who know Cordelia and Wayne are increasingly concerned. Sometimes fueled by drugs and alcohol, they often fight because, of course, drugs and alcohol are going to make them disinhibited, and some of those underlying tensions come to the surface.

[00:10:31]They'd had a number of arguments. She would wind him up. On an occasion, >> [music] >> she would watch YouTube videos that starred her ex-boyfriend in there to try and get a rise from him, and almost sort of looking for a fight with him.

[00:10:48]She'd get dressed up and inside that she's going out to meet blokes and that, she know, it wind him up.

[00:10:54]And when she used to phone him up while she's having sex with other men, just so he could hear it and everything, but it would get to him.

[00:11:03]What Cordelia does, this calling him while she's having sex with other men, um and watching videos of ex-partners, tells me two things.

[00:11:14]One, that to Cordelia, sexual power is incredibly important.

[00:11:21]>> [music] >> And number two, that she doesn't feel she can achieve this through normal, healthy means.

[00:11:27]Every time Cordelia carried out some kind of abuse on Wayne, the inhibitions were reduced further.

[00:11:37]Each and every act just set the scene for the next.

[00:11:41]Which way would our artist get him away from her? Well, obviously you can't protect him when he's going through something like that.

[00:11:46]He weren't ready to leave. He loved her too much.

[00:11:49]The more you allow and permit this toxic behavior [music] to continue, the more normalized that toxic behavior becomes.

[00:11:59]You forgive it. You expect it.

[00:12:03]To be in a controlling and coercive relationship for a long time normalizes what is [music] actually toxic within the relationship. And of course, if that is allowed to continue, that's very dangerous indeed.

[00:12:20]If you tried to explain to him that he got the wrong one, he wouldn't listen.

[00:12:27]As far as he was concerned, she was the right one. He was stuck. He was obsessed with her.

[00:12:34]He absolutely loved her to death.

[00:12:36]But his father, Barry, becomes increasingly concerned.

[00:12:40]Some of the things he overhears are extremely worrying. She used to threaten him a lot over the phone. I've even heard her turn around and threaten to kill him. The fact that [music] he expects this kind of treatment, so when he receives it, it's just what he anticipates. And he blames himself to some degree, and it triggers him to seek her approval more rather than having the effect that it should have, which is to make him immediately leave the relationship.

[00:13:14]Wayne never thought of her leaving Deirdre.

[00:13:18]I even turned around and says, "Why don't you come and live with me? I've got a bed in the conservatory. You could have stopped in the conservatory, live with me." But no, he wanted to be with Dalian.

[00:13:31]Everybody tried the hardest. Everybody tried to explain this is bad for you.

[00:13:34]You can't keep on going through what you're going through, but he stuck with it.

[00:13:39]I tell you what, he loved her.

[00:13:41]He used to say, "I can't control them, Oliver." You just can't do nothing, can you?

[00:13:45]It's increasingly clear Cordelia and Wayne are in a toxic relationship that they are both wedded to.

[00:13:54]It's quite clear that Wayne was keen to continue with the relationship with the Cordelia as she was with him. So, it's very difficult to [music] try and manage that situation when both parties don't want to leave.

[00:14:04]Having only recently separated from his partner of 18 years, Wayne doesn't want to be alone. They work together in a relationship, but in a very >> [music] >> dysfunctional, pathological way. Most people would run for the hills when experiencing this kind of psychological abuse within [music] a an intimate relationship.

[00:14:28]Only Wayne's family know about the abuse he claims to suffer at the hands of Cordelia. In this situation, we've got a man who hasn't reported domestic abuse.

[00:14:39]And of course, there are some overlaps with why women don't report domestic abuse, fear of shame for example.

[00:14:46]However, there are added elements when the man is the victim and the woman is the perpetrator. And of course, that relates to ideas, often our dated ideas of masculinity.

[00:15:00]By being seen as being the victim of a woman who is domestically abusing the man, the man's sense of who he is is fundamentally altered, he believes in the eyes of our culture.

[00:15:22]In 2019, the police received a telephone call from Wayne complaining that he'd been attacked by Cordelia.

[00:15:32]She went round to his flat that night.

[00:15:35]And they were having a bit of food and a bit of drink, and then she sort of pretended that she wanted to have sex, so she just put her hand down his pants.

[00:15:43]The next thing he knows is she's grabbing on his testicles, really badly pulling down on it.

[00:15:50]It was a vicious attack. He described being grabbed by the testicles and literally pulled around the room.

[00:15:56][music] Because of the pain and everything of that, my brother actually passed out at that stage.

[00:16:02]And the next thing he remembers is coming round with a literally torn into bloody off.

[00:16:08]She was scary when she wanted to be.

[00:16:12]Very.

[00:16:18]Cordelia is violent because in her case, her underlying personality disorder doesn't give her a fixed center that she's comfortable with. She's constantly frightened that she's going to be abandoned, [music] and therefore that sense of being emotionally volatile is because it comes from a place where she doesn't actually know who she is.

[00:16:46]When you look at photographs of Cordelia, it's quite clear she's a very sexual woman, and she would be very conscious of how she could use her um looks in relationships as a means by which she could control her partners.

[00:17:02]Add to that her emotional volatility, that's a very dangerous combination of factors.

[00:17:12]Eventually, when he got around, he thought police and the ambulance had turned up, so he was going to open the door, and that's when she stabbed him in the back with a plate as well.

[00:17:25]When the police actually arrived, what they established was that not only did she bite him, but also stabbed him in the back with some broken crockery. So, this was quite serious.

[00:17:35]I mean, 58 sets of teeth marks. Yeah, they're all in his bits, his testicles.

[00:17:39]So, at that point, Cordelia was arrested and and taken into custody for questioning.

[00:17:45]She said she was defending herself from an attack from Wayne.

[00:17:49]But, what was surprising was there were no injuries on Cordelia.

[00:17:54]At the conclusion of that interview, she makes a chilling statement.

[00:17:57]One of them will end up dead.

[00:18:04]He called her from the hospital while he was in the hospital bed. You knew it was going to happen eventually, you know what I mean? It She just went that far with things. It was just unbelievable.

[00:18:15]This wasn't a usual domestic dispute whereby the couple have had a row and just fallen out and raised voices. This was a particularly vicious, nasty, physical assault on a man by a woman, which is unusual in itself.

[00:18:30]It was embarrassing to say that you're getting beat up and to Rose Bowl woman.

[00:18:37]I mean, it didn't look exciting to me, but you could see and it was hard to watch when it was happening.

[00:18:44]When it's a male victim, often there's a deep-seated sense of shame and embarrassment at being attacked by a female perpetrator.

[00:18:53]>> [music] >> We hardly spoke on the way back.

[00:18:58]>> [music] >> I asked him if he wanted to come and stay at mine, but no, he wanted to go back to his own flat.

[00:19:05]>> [music] >> So, I took him back there, but he didn't say much. He didn't speak much about it.

[00:19:12]Cordelia would one day [music] tell a court she suffered at the hands of Wayne, too.

[00:19:17]He was never charged with an offense, but there's little doubt theirs is a highly volatile and [music] toxic relationship. Having interviewed Cordelia and had her account where she is claiming that she was defending herself from an argument, the police don't have sufficient evidence to to charge her, >> [music] >> and so she's released. The police need to investigate further. While they do, safeguards are put in place.

[00:19:44]Cordelia was actually under two different non-molestation orders from things that she was doing to my brother.

[00:19:51]Non-molestation orders issued by the courts protect a victim of abuse by preventing their abusers >> [music] >> from contacting them.

[00:19:59]But Wayne and Cordelia are still seeing each other. Oh, he was at risk, but you couldn't tell him.

[00:20:09]He He wouldn't listen to anybody.

[00:20:11]There was no getting him away from each other. He absolutely thought the world of her. When you look at the assault that took place on Wayne by Cordelia, any normal person would step back from that and think, "That's it. That's the end of the relationship. You know, I I've had enough." But that didn't happen with Wayne and Cordelia.

[00:20:29]The pattern we see here is Cordelia being the one to attack Wayne.

[00:20:35]He reacts. He responds, but he's rarely proactively initiating violence.

[00:20:45]However, around this time, Wayne reveals a shocking incident to his older brother.

[00:20:51]I received a message off him saying, "I don't think we need to speak."

[00:20:56]And then all of a sudden I seen a picture of my brother that I didn't even recognize. He was just all black and blue.

[00:21:04]Seeing pictures of him, I couldn't him being beaten up like that.

[00:21:10]I wanted to get in my own car and drive as well as my [ __ ] I didn't get a taxi from the hospital, which was in Birmingham all the way up here.

[00:21:17]After the mysterious beating, Wayne's family rallies around.

[00:21:22]We sort of kept Wayne up here. Being a bigger brother and that, I just wanted to try and protect him as much as I could. In fact, Wayne is now staying with his brother Shawn in an attempt to keep him away from Cordelia.

[00:21:34]But he can't resist her. He kept on disappearing and that.

[00:21:38]Cuz he was signing that he was signing in a hotel with one of his mates.

[00:21:43]We put two and two together and we realized it was Cordelia.

[00:21:47]And Cordelia couldn't do anything wrong in his eyes.

[00:21:52]That's how much he thought of her and how much he loved her. He didn't want to be apart from her.

[00:21:58]Their relationship is is like an addiction, something they feel they need, yet it brings them emotional and increasingly now physical pain.

[00:22:10]And it's a difficult cycle to break, growing more intense over time. And it's an addiction that is heading towards disaster.

[00:22:25]>> [music] [music] >> Wayne Coventry's bond to Cordelia Farrell is too strong.

[00:22:37]Despite promises to family that he would, he can't [music] stay away.

[00:22:43]The couple are meeting in secret.

[00:22:44]They've been sleeping in a tent together. After what happened in September and all the other things that she'd done with him, when we found out that they were signing a tent, we decided to wind my brother to bring Cordelia up and stay here.

[00:22:58]Because we thought he'd be better off staying here because we could keep an eye on him. She said to my partner and myself before that she likes to pick a word with him to keep him on his toes.

[00:23:07]She used to doll up and say to him that she was going out even if she weren't going out just so she could wind him up.

[00:23:16]>> [music] >> The one thing Cordelia needs more than anything is to feel powerful within her relationships. And Wayne needs to be with somebody valuable, somebody dominant, somebody powerful, somebody significant. So, the more she abuses him through this behavior, the more he wants her. And the more he wants her, the more powerful she feels.

[00:23:37]They work together in a relationship, but in a very dysfunctional, pathological way. Um it's it's a very effective relationship, but one that is heading for disaster.

[00:23:51]She looked at us one day and she went, "My name's Dee." And then she sort of turned around to him and went, "My name's Cordelia."

[00:23:58]As if you thought two different sides to her.

[00:24:03]She's developing different strategies, different personas with different names are coming forward. When she was loving and bubbly and that, it was good.

[00:24:12]But then she could just snap.

[00:24:14]And then everything just went to pot. It will be evident to other people that this is somebody very changeable, unpredictable, that they don't know what they're going to get. And it's because there is no stable core to Cordelia. This is somebody who is forever poised for battle, ready to be triggered.

[00:24:38]One minute she'd be fine and the next minute she'd be a totally different person. People with this personality disorder are incredibly reactive, triggerable. They are volatile emotionally. They're not able to cope with any kind of disrespect or dishonor or any kind of assumed attacks on them and who they are at all.

[00:24:59]>> [music] >> My partner actually said to Cordelia in front of Wayne, you're going to end up killing him, you are.

[00:25:07]She just smirked.

[00:25:10]Behind the closed doors of Shawn's home, the matters of Wayne and Cordelia are coming to a head. They got up in the morning. They were sort of bickering.

[00:25:20]Ever willing to taunt her boyfriend, Cordelia spots an opportunity. My daughter came. Yeah, she was prison officer. So, obviously she used to turn up in her prison clothes and everything like that.

[00:25:32]Cordelia tried it on with my daughter in front of my brother to try and wind him up.

[00:25:38]She just kept on pulling it on her, trying to sit on her lap, trying to flirt with her.

[00:25:45]She started him upstairs in the bedroom.

[00:25:48]Where she scratched all his face and ripped his t-shirt. I've had to run up.

[00:25:53]And sort of say Wayne, come down and leave it. He'd come down and sit in the living room with me. And she'd just carry on, though. Just trying to get a reaction out of him.

[00:26:03]But she couldn't get a reaction out of him and I'll keep on pulling him away to stop it getting any further.

[00:26:10]There was a point where she kicked him down the stairs. And I had to run out and see what was going on again. She turned around and said that he'd kicked her up the stairs, but it was Wayne that come flying down the stairs.

[00:26:23]It just got worse through the day.

[00:26:26]My brother did retaliate and slashed some of her clothes up to her jackets that she had.

[00:26:32]Wayne's retaliation makes her behavior worse.

[00:26:36]This is everything that she cannot bear.

[00:26:39]This is everything that she is fighting against. This sense of feeling overpowered.

[00:26:44]The move wasn't one Farrell was going to accept. [music] My brother's coming in through the gate and son, who's 11 years old, stood in front of my brother like that, as if protecting him.

[00:26:58]So, even my son witnessed what was going on. He was obviously trying to protect his uncle, Wayne.

[00:27:03]There's a few people at at the house.

[00:27:06]Wayne and Cordelia go into the kitchen, and an argument ensues. [music] >> [music] >> Standing up for himself is not what Cordelia expects of Wayne.

[00:27:23]The feeling of being challenged would have overwhelmed her, triggering [music] every instinct to fight back. And in the heat of the confrontation in the kitchen, the most commonplace in Britain where somebody will be killed, Cordelia reacts.

[00:27:41]Roughly about 7:00.

[00:27:43]I heard a commotion from in the living room. So, I come to the gate there. And as as I've got to the gate, Cordelia would have grabbed the knife knife block that was on the side just there.

[00:27:55]She was [music] stood at the cooker with the blade in her hand, and it was the biggest one out the block.

[00:28:00]She was stood here with the knife behind my brother's back. Obviously, because I was seeing the knife, I shouted, "Wayne!"

[00:28:06]He sort of took a couple of steps forward, and then it was literally as if she was waiting for him to turn around.

[00:28:13]>> [gasps] >> And [snorts] as he's sort of turned around, she's plunged the knife in, straight in him.

[00:28:23]My brother-in-law shouted, "Don't pull the knife out!"

[00:28:27]But she just pulled it out and smirked, as if she knew what she was doing.

[00:28:33]And my son was stood there right by the side of her when she done it.

[00:28:37]A little 11-year-old boy.

[00:28:41]It was like my brother didn't realize what had happened at that time.

[00:28:45]So, he's carried on and walked to here.

[00:28:48]And then he sort of must have realized, so he's turned around. He's just shouted Shawn and that was it. He's sort of fell down onto the floor here.

[00:28:59]People say you freeze. I've I've never understood it before, but I literally was stuck. I couldn't move.

[00:29:07]And then that's when I've [music] come running in, phoned in 999 for the ambulance and the police and that. And obviously they have had to get down on the floor and start giving my brother's last breaths as he was on the floor.

[00:29:23]So, having stabbed Wayne, Cordelia immediately flees the address and we don't know where she's gone. This leaves Wayne in a critical state in his brother's arms. She had literally dropped the knife and walked out. My brother's dying on the floor.

[00:29:40]And then obviously you've seen all the color start drain, mate, being uh and then all his breathing had gone funny and I was on the phone to the ambulance and they were asking me to count his breaths and everything like that.

[00:29:52]It was hard and I couldn't do it. I had to get some I was going to do it.

[00:30:10]And Shawn phoned me and says that Dalia had stabbed Wayne and she'd gone.

[00:30:18]>> [music] >> When when the ambulance turned up, I run out there and try and say, "Look, he's he's he's he's not breathing." Cuz he had actually stopped breathing. My brother-in-law [music] was doing CPR and that. I was on the phone for 3 3 4 hours. During that time, the paramedics are there. They revived him for a couple of minutes.

[00:30:49]They kept him in there for hours and they done open heart surgery in the kitchen, but they stated when they got his heart out there was no blood left in his body.

[00:30:57]She had severed the main artery to his heart.

[00:31:01]Eventually when they had finished doing the work in there with Wayne, they literally come in and pronounced him dead at the time.

[00:31:10]It's heartbreaking.

[00:31:12]>> [music] [music] >> I couldn't sleep that night after that.

[00:31:23]I was awake, couldn't sleep.

[00:31:25]And then the following day I come down.

[00:31:29]Sure.

[00:31:32]But of course there was nothing I could do.

[00:31:44]All these bruising and everything that he done from the previous fight cuz it was only a couple of weeks before.

[00:31:52]All come out on him.

[00:31:54]When he was dead.

[00:31:57]So he he didn't It wasn't I mean Wayne at all.

[00:32:03]Didn't look like him at all, covered in bruises.

[00:32:08]For Wayne's brother and father their worst fears had become a reality.

[00:32:13]She kept saying that she'd murdered him. She even told my brother-in-law in the mine, my partner's brother, "Wayne's dead today. I'm going to kill him."

[00:32:22]But you don't think nothing of that, you know what I mean, but obviously she meant it.

[00:32:29]No, I never thought it would actually happen.

[00:32:33]Wanted to protect him.

[00:32:35]And I couldn't.

[00:32:37]Last thing he shouted was Sean.

[00:32:46]I couldn't do nothing.

[00:32:51]Although it was a single stab wound, the attack was particularly vicious requiring significant force to pierce through the chest.

[00:33:00]Cordelia was clearly enraged and intended to cause harm when she picked up the knife.

[00:33:07]So this has now become a murder investigation with Cordelia as the prime suspect and she's on the run.

[00:33:15]Is anyone else at risk? It scared the living daylights out of my son when after witnessing what he witnessed in the house watching his uncle get murdered and then dying, he was worried about her coming back.

[00:33:31]It's important to try and get hold of Cordelia as quickly as possible. Not only to ensure that she is in custody and can't cause any harm to anyone else, but also she then can't cause harm to herself or destroy any further evidence.

[00:33:48]So they've moved me and my partner to a hotel.

[00:33:51]Well I obviously was busy with forensic evidence and everything like that.

[00:33:56]And so the police would be doing their normal sort of inquiries of door-to-door, speaking to friends and family, looking at social media. If she had a mobile phone, then they'd be trying to track her through that and also any financial inquiries in certain locations that might help close the net and bring her into custody.

[00:34:16]Was Cordelia Farrell coming to terms with what she had done?

[00:34:20]I think that they having killed somebody that clearly she was intimately involved with will have brought her face-to-face with the person that she has become and she now tries to run from that. She's not just running from the police, she's running from the reality of what she has become.

[00:34:45]If somebody doesn't want to be found, then [music] it's fairly easy to to go into hiding for a considerable period of time, particularly if you effectively go off the grid. You know, you turn off your phone, you're not on social media, you're not in contact with friends and family. You're just hiding out somewhere.

[00:35:03]Throughout the Midlands, as pressure mounts on police to find Wayne's killer, Farrell shocks detectives with her next [music] move.

[00:35:11]Five days into the investigation, having discovered Wayne dead at that address, Cordelia, surprisingly, gives herself up to the police.

[00:35:26]That's not unusual under the circumstances if the police have been putting a lot of pressure on friends and family who may have been in contact with Cordelia.

[00:35:36]But then eventually, when the phone call gone through to say that she'd been got, it was a relief.

[00:35:41]The police still had a job [music] to do.

[00:35:44]So, having given herself up, police would have secured Cordelia very [music] quickly, brought her into custody, and they would have forensically examined her. Make sure that she hasn't got any injuries herself. You know, was there a fight? Has she got any defensive injuries that that need to be [music] recorded?

[00:36:00]Has she got any forensic evidence on her that would suggest she is responsible, even though we've got eyewitnesses that say she was? She could still argue that.

[00:36:08]And so, is there any forensic evidence that we need to recover? And also, you know, was she under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time? And so, various samples would have been taken for analysis.

[00:36:18]>> [music] >> With Cordelia in custody, the police secured evidence and examined her for any injuries [music] or signs of substance use.

[00:36:28]While eyewitnesses pointed to her, the investigation had to be thorough.

[00:36:33]Farrell may have handed herself in, but contrary to all the popular common sense myths, >> [music] >> she's not going to admit to murder and very few murderers actually do.

[00:36:59]A 37-year-old Cordelia Farrell has handed herself into the police, but despite witnesses to the murder of Wayne Coventry, the case will prove to be far from straightforward.

[00:37:14]When Cordelia is interviewed, and the officers put a number of questions to her, and she wouldn't answer any questions. And so the police are then left with, well, we've got Wayne dead, we've got the brother who's a witness, and we've got Cordelia who's been on the run.

[00:37:30]The only assumption we can make from that is that she's murdered Wayne and she intended to kill him.

[00:37:36]And so they go to the Crown Prosecution Service for an authority to charge her with murder of Wayne.

[00:37:44]Cordelia put up a plea >> [music] >> for manslaughter as an alternative to to the murder.

[00:37:51]>> [music] >> And what she's saying effectively is that she admits to be responsible for the killing of Wayne, but that she didn't intend to do it, and she didn't intend to cause him serious harm.

[00:38:01]It's an important [music] legal distinction.

[00:38:05]Murder means life.

[00:38:07]Manslaughter can result [music] in much less prison time. She just wanted to get away with it.

[00:38:13]She knew if she'd have gone guilty, she'd have got longer.

[00:38:18]I thought Cordelia's plea of not guilty was absolutely ridiculous.

[00:38:25]She stabbed him on the so I can't really not guilty.

[00:38:34]And in fact, what she said was that she was defending herself [music] because at some stage Wayne had put a knife towards her back.

[00:38:42]And so she grabbed [music] this large kitchen knife, the largest knife in the block, and plunged it into Wayne's chest.

[00:38:49]>> [music] >> And the police have to try and disprove that if they can.

[00:38:55]It's very difficult [music] when you've got, you know, one person's word against another or when when your victim is is deceased and can't speak for themselves.

[00:39:02]And so you do your best to try and get corroborative evidence and, you know, the police would be relying on bad character evidence where Cordelia had this violent outburst on Wayne only a month before the murder.

[00:39:16]But also what Cordelia is also painting picture of is that is that Wayne was violent and that she was merely defending herself. And so it's quite tricky for juries sometimes to try and work their way through that information and decide effectively who's telling the truth and who's not.

[00:39:31]Wayne's family would be chief witnesses in her trial.

[00:39:35]Well, when I was giving my evidence on the stand and I seen Cordelia in the dock, she was actually smiling at me as if it was something to laugh about.

[00:39:44]She's got a nasty streak in her.

[00:39:46]Definitely.

[00:39:48]The jury is given an outline of events.

[00:39:52]They hear about the non-molestation orders issued against Farrell.

[00:39:57]Even when she done them last two fingers to him, she was still under the non-molestation order so she could have gone to on remand on that.

[00:40:11]The moment arrives.

[00:40:13]Will it be murder or manslaughter?

[00:40:18]Cordelia Farrell is convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years for the killing of Wayne Coventry.

[00:40:26]The judge instructed that she serve a minimum of 7 and 1/2 years.

[00:40:31]Farrell was also given an 18-month sentence for aggravated bodily harm to run concurrently.

[00:40:40]I think that the manslaughter verdict was a reflection of the fact that this was a voluntary relationship that the two were part of and that there were escalating episodes of violence that continued over a period of time.

[00:40:57]Therefore, to some extent, the manslaughter emerged out of that destructive relationship.

[00:41:08]It wasn't enough.

[00:41:10]Nowhere near enough.

[00:41:13]I expected it to get at least around about 20-year mark.

[00:41:18]10 years was nothing. I couldn't understand I don't know how someone can get away with that.

[00:41:26]That just shows me that it's a dangerous person you're talking about.

[00:41:30]And I think she should have got what she deserved really instead of just the 10 years that she got.

[00:41:36]My brother's lost his life and never going to see him again, but yet she gets to walk free in 7 and 1/2 years.

[00:41:44]It's wrong.

[00:41:46]For the family, the trial could have turned out worse.

[00:41:50]A plea of self-defense might have seen Cordelia walk free.

[00:41:55]But that claim was something the jury seems to have rejected.

[00:42:01]The jury dismissed any possibility that Cordelia was defending herself. And I think what kind of helped them come to that conclusion was that Cordelia didn't hang around. You know, this wasn't a reaction whereby I know what what have I done. I need to get Wayne some help.

[00:42:18]She plunged the knife into him, she removed [music] it, and then she ran away.

[00:42:23]The sentencing decision is devastating for Wayne's [music] family as they try to come to terms with their loss.

[00:42:32]This is put all of our family apart.

[00:42:35]It's totally destroyed me, my partner, and my son after what we went through.

[00:42:40]We're all going through really bad mental health. It's just hard.

[00:42:45]And especially for an 11-year-old boy as well.

[00:42:48]Has he withstood what was ordered when she put the knife in my brother?

[00:42:54]I'm still upset over it. I mean pictures that I've got they're all laid out on the table which is just Wayne.

[00:43:05]I've still all [music] the pictures and different bits and pieces.

[00:43:10]They're all Wayne's. This table, man, is right by the side of my chair.

[00:43:16]So I can see him every minute of the day.

[00:43:22]For Shawn, spending time in the home where his brother lived brings a little consolation.

[00:43:29]Cuz it's the last time I was with him was here. So looking to buy hopefully eventually.

[00:43:36]Yeah.

[00:43:37]But I've got his own little garden around the side here. It's and then obviously I helped him build that gate where his plaques on the gate.

[00:43:52]For the men of the Coventry family, their mission is clear. [music] To urge other men to break the silence and report abuse even when the abuser is a a So if anybody's out there going through the same thing, please get help or please listen to your family members or people that can see what's happening because they know a lot more than what you do. I know it's hard, but you need to try and listen.

[00:44:20]I wish my brother had have done cuz he wouldn't be where he is now.

[00:44:26]Just missing.

[00:44:29]And I know for a fact if he'd have survived all of this, he probably still would have dropped the charges.

[00:44:33]Cuz that's the sort of person he was. He loved her to bits.

[00:44:37]And no one could say nothing different.

[00:44:41]When he found the right person, he wanted to be with them all the time. He was that sort of person. He weren't one for cheating or going behind the backs or nothing. He he was good.

[00:44:51]He just loved her too much.

[00:44:54]He knew that it weren't right, but he just couldn't turn his head. He couldn't get her away from [music] it.

[00:45:08]Because he was besotted with her, he couldn't act staying by himself.

[00:45:13]He had to have somebody there.

[00:45:15]And daily he had to be the one he was with at the time.

[00:45:20]His wide smile was just contagious.

[00:45:23]>> [sighs and gasps] >> Just look at Cheshire Cat.

[00:45:30]Always grinning. No matter what happened, whether he was down or up, he always had that smile.

[00:45:35]Always. Everyone used to go on about it.

[00:45:38]It was contagious.

[00:45:40]No matter what was going on, he always had it.

[00:45:47]I miss him a lot.

[00:45:58]>> [music] >> Mhm.