The police could have stopped Michaela Hall’s murder

Content warning: domestic abuse, murder, femicide

As police officers drove away on the night Michaela Hall was murdered, body-worn cameras recorded them saying they could imagine her “lying there with him covering her mouth”. “But what can you do?” they added. “She doesn’t help herself.” 

The next day, Michaela’s father found her dead. 

It’s five years since her partner, Lee Kendall, killed this mother of two – just two weeks after the authorities released him from prison, where he was serving a sentence for assaulting her. 

The police and probation service knew Kendall was abusing Michaela. He had 47 previous convictions across 78 offences, with links to many more. They had recorded 16 assaults on Michaela – likely only a fraction of the abuse she endured.

When they released him from prison, the probation service said he was only “medium risk” –  even though there was a clear pattern of escalating violence. That decision mattered. It meant he was released back into Michaela’s life with minimal supervision. 

On the night she was killed, Michaela called a friend in fear for her life. When she screamed and dropped the phone, her friend called the police. They knew who they were dealing with. They knew Kendall’s history of domestic violence. They had been to the house many times before.

But when the officers arrived, nobody answered the door. They checked the garden and tapped at the back window. And then they left.

They knew Michaela was in immediate danger. They knew they could break down the door to save her life.

Instead, they walked away – leaving Michaela inside.

When the state knows someone is at real and immediate risk of serious harm, it has a duty to act. The police failed to meet that duty.

We’re helping Michaela’s family take legal action against the police and probation service for the mistakes that cost her life. We’re exposing the systemic failures that make women invisible in the very systems meant to protect them.

For Katrina McDonnell, misogyny campaign manager at Good Law Project, Michaela’s story reveals a deeply rooted apathy within the police force. 

“The police are supposed to protect and serve,” McDonnell said, “but too often women are ignored and abandoned. We can’t stand by while more women lose their lives to male violence.”

Michaela’s family are fighting for changes in how police and probation services identify, assess and respond to domestic abuse – changes that could stop other women suffering the same tragedy.

A woman is killed in the UK on average every three days by a man. How many more women have to die before victims of domestic abuse are taken seriously?

It’s time for the system to protect victims of domestic abuse.