Kiena Dawes: Man who abused mum before she took own life jailed


A man who subjected his partner to psychological and physical abuse before she took her own life has been sentenced to six-and-a-half years in jail. Kiena Dawes, a mother of one, was just 23 years old when she died by suicide on a railway line in Lancashire on July 22nd, 2022. In a note on her mobile phone, she claimed that her 30-year-old partner Ryan Wellings was a “monster and a bully” who had “killed” her. Wellings was convicted of assault and coercive and controlling behavior in relation to the abuse that Dawes suffered during her life. Though he was cleared of manslaughter by a jury at Preston Crown Court, the court was asked to sentence him based on the fact that his abuse of Dawes had “set the scene for her death” according to prosecutor Paul Greaney KC.

Wellings was a landscape gardener from Bispham in Lancashire and had previously been convicted of “battering” an ex-girlfriend before he met Miss Dawes, with further convictions for burglary and criminal damage dating back to

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