Soldier guilty of murdering ex-girlfriend Alice Ruggles
By Kris Jepson
Lance Corporal Trimaan Dhillon, known to Alice as ‘Harry’, was convicted at Newcastle Crown Court for brutally murdering his former girlfriend, Alice Ruggles, in a “jealous rage” at her Gateshead flat.
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He slit her throat from ear to ear and left he laying in a pool of blood on the floor of her bathroom.
During the two week trial, the jury heard how 26-year-old Dhillon was a “controlling, manipulative and possessive” stalker with a “dangerous obsession” with Alice.
After Alice had tried to extricate herself from the relationship, because of his “serial cheating”, Dhillon continued to harass the 24-year-old.
Harassment
In the weeks leading up to her death, Dhillon made three uninvited 240 mile round trips from his barracks in Glencorse, near Edinburgh, to Alice’s Gateshead home.
On the night of 30 September, he knocked on her front door three times and hid in the darkness. He then knocked on Alice’s bedroom window and left flowers and chocolates on the ledge.
Whilst driving back to his barracks that night, he left her numerous voice mails. In one message, he said "I've never hurt you. I don't want to kill you".
Two days before Alice was killed, Dhillon again travelled to her flat. He accessed the back alley and took a photograph of the rear of the property.
999 Call
On the 12 October, Dhillon, left his barracks and drove to Alice’s flat again. He waited for her to arrive home. Once she had arrived from work, he scaled the back alley wall to her flat and entered through her bedroom window.
When he left her home, Alice’s body lay on her bathroom floor in a pool of blood. Her flatmate found her.
IPCC Review
Alice had made two complaints to Northumbria Police about Dhillon harassing her within the two weeks leading up to her death. She was being stalked and felt unsafe in her own home.
During the trial Dhillon admitted to telling numerous lies, creating a false email account for Alice in order to change her social media passwords, attempted to hack into the Facebook account of a male friend of Alice and also kept explicit photographs of Alice.
She made a second call to police just five days before being murdered after Dhillon had sent her a letter, photos and a notebook, despite being ordered by his commanding officers and the police not to contact her again.
Statements from Alice’s friends and family suggested she felt she had been "palmed off" by the police. She felt it was a “waste of time” and felt like a "burden".
Alice sent a message to her sister saying "They (police) will ******* respond when he has ******* stabbed me".