Exclusive: Father of alleged domestic abuser allowed to move woman’s body to morgue

By Jamie Roberton

The father of a man who was later arrested on suspicion of his girlfriend’s murder was allowed to transfer her body to a morgue in the hours after her sudden death, Channel 4 News can reveal.

Danielle Charters-Christie, 25, was found dead at a mobile home that she shared with her boyfriend, who had been accused of domestic abuse, in Gloucestershire on 26th February 2021.

The boyfriend – who Channel 4 News is not naming – claimed to have discovered Ms Charters-Christie’s body in the porch before first ringing his father, a local undertaker, who arrived and called 999.

Police declared Ms Charters-Christie’s death as suicide within 55 minutes of arriving on the scene.

The boyfriend’s father then told emergency workers that he did not want another local funeral director attending and that he wanted to “bag her up” to take the body to the mortuary himself, according to a police document seen by Channel 4 News.

A senior coroner’s officer granted permission for the boyfriend’s father to personally transport Ms Charters-Christie’s body, while under police escort.

Ms Charters-Christie’s boyfriend was arrested and interviewed on suspicion of murder in April 2022, more than a year after her death. He was released with no further action taken due to a lack of evidence.

Caroline Charters, Danielle’s mother, told Channel 4 News that she believed the decision was totally inappropriate, adding that she was “disgusted” and that “it should never have happened”.

Gloucestershire Police said the decision was based solely with the local coroner’s office, but told Channel 4 News in an interview that “there was no doubt that the transfer of the body was unusual” and that there were “lessons for us all to learn”.

A Senior Gloucestershire Coroner’s Officer said it would be inappropriate to comment.

The details emerged in a Victim Right to Review, requested by Danielle Charters-Christie’s family.

The boyfriend’s father is recorded as having made the request that the designated undertaker not attend within seven and a half minutes of making the initial 999 call, a point he is said to have remonstrated further when emergency workers arrived at the scene.

An ambulance worker described the boyfriend’s father as “unhappy” when told he would have to wait to transfer the body until more senior paramedics had arrived to officially pronounce Ms Charters-Christie as deceased, according to the review document.

The father was then allowed to stop at his home after collecting the body in order to get changed.

The boyfriend’s father later said in a police statement that he requested to transfer Ms Charters-Christie’s body because “he viewed Danielle as family and didn’t want anyone else doing it as they [the family] are undertakers”.

He also told officers that he stopped to “get dressed properly out of respect”.

In her first interview since her daughter’s death, Caroline Charters-Christie said: “I am absolutely disgusted and outraged.

”A young, 25-year-old girl who’s fit and well, in a domestic abuse relationship found dead after her partner’s just discovered she’s been seeing another man, and then they allow the father to remove her body? It should never have happened, and I will make sure it never ever happens again”.

Ms Charters-Christie’s former partner and his father have not responded to repeated requests for comment.

Ms Charters said she had since spent three and a half years “begging and pleading with them [Gloucestershire Police] to investigate my daughter’s death”, accusing the force of a litany of failings in its investigation.

“One officer said we’re going to have to agree to disagree Caroline, ‘your daughter committed suicide‘. I’ve been called hostile by the police, told to stop asking questions – it has been tough.”

Danielle – described by her family as “bright, bubbly and beautiful” – is known to have experienced depression while “much younger” but was understood at the time of her death to be “making plans for the future as opposed to suffering such poor mental health that led her to be suicidal”.

Police records show that Ms Charters-Christie’s partner had found out about her relationship with another man on the evening before she was found dead.

An external review into the force’s handling of the investigation, shared with Channel 4 News, detailed a failure to forensically examine the porch where Ms Charters-Christie was found, nor the wider mobile home that the couple shared.

Police admitted that by the time of the boyfriend’s arrest on suspicion of murder in April 2022, the mobile home “was no longer there” with the suspect admitting that it had been “disposed of”.

The review – conducted by Wiltshire Police – concluded: “Evidence that would point towards or against [third-party involvement] is simply not available and is not likely to ever become available. History cannot be changed.

“This will inevitably be frustrating for Danielle’s family and friends. There are several unanswered questions that cannot and will not ever be answered”.

Caroline Charters-Christie said: “You cannot go back and lock that scene down, the golden hour has gone. However, I want to see accountability, and if that’s accountability from the police, then that is what I’m going to fight for.”

Gloucestershire Police Assistant Chief Constable Arman Mathieson told Channel 4 News: “With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that there have been evidential opportunities that have not been taken.

“We could have taken an approach which gave more consideration to the potential for domestic abuse leading to the death of Danielle and certainly Caroline has had to campaign and had to challenge the organisation in the force quite extensively, and no one should have to go through that.”