Battered mum driven to kill her boyfriend blasts justice system for ‘failing’ abuse victims after she’s acquitted of murder
A BATTERED woman driven to kill her boyfriend has slammed the justice system for failing abuse victims.
Elizabeth Hart Browne was acquitted of murdering Stephen Rayner after years of abuse, and wants courts to do more to help women trapped in violent relationships.
She stabbed Mr Rayner, 25, three times during a row when she got back to their flat in Acton, west London from a party where she had been drinking champagne.
Jurors heard she had knifed Mr Rayner twice before – but acquitted her of murder at the Old Bailey after deliberating for 14 hours and 55 minutes.
The 29-year-old thinks women are blamed for becoming involved with those who abuse them, and end up losing their children.
She is still fighting to get her kids back, despite being cleared, and only gets to see them for six hours of supervised a month.
Elizabeth told the Mirror she has gone to parenting classes, had 18 weeks of intensive counselling, psychotherapy and joined a domestic violence group.
But her kids, aged five and nine, now live with a carer – and Elizabeth wants social services better trained to help victims get their children back.
She said: “No one comes from a perfect family home. And mine wasn’t perfect. Far from it.
“But I don’t think that because I have made that mistake I should have my children taken off me for the rest of my life.
“It seems like a further way to punish me because I didn’t get the punishment the court wanted me to get. I didn’t get life. This is my penance that I have to pay.”
‘VICTIMS BLAMED’
While in jail she befriended Sally Challen at HMP Bronzefield, who ran the Women’s Institute there.
She was caged for life after admitting she battered “abusive” partner Richard, 61, to death at their £1m Surrey home in 2010.
The mum was freed pending a re-trial after her conviction was quashed when new laws were passed, making coercive control illegal.
Elizabeth said: “Sally was lovely. I like knitting and she said ‘I know you’re a young girl but this will really help pass the time’.
“So I did that. In a lot of ways her case mirrors mine. All the women in there were really lovely, they were so supportive and nice.”
Before Elizabeth was cleared of murder, the court heard how violence became normal in the couple’s toxic on and off six-year relationship after they met in a bar in Hammersmith, west London, in 2010.
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Mr Rayner was ordered by a court to complete a domestic abuse programme after Elizabeth was forced to defend herself with her stiletto shoe after an attack outside a nightclub in 2012.
But he went on to knock her out when she fell against a mirror during a row at her mother’s house, threaten to kill her and punch her in the face because he complained she hadn’t done the washing up.
Elizabeth told jurors she took out life insurance in January 2015, fearing her lover would kill her after he bit her face during an attack, and claimed he “waterboarded” her by putting her head under the taps in the bath in June last year.
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