Damian Bendall: Quadruple murderer missed five drug appointments

By George Torr & PA News agency

BBC News

A health worker who saw Damien Bendall before he murdered his pregnant partner and three children has told a coroner he missed at least five meetings to address his substance misuse.

Rebecca Pashley had a meeting with Bendall, 33, the day before the murders in Killamarsh, Derbyshire.

She said she was also not given any information about Bendall’s previous offences by the probation office.

The inquests, at Chesterfield Coroner’s Court, continue.

Bendall used a claw hammer to kill 35-year-old Terri Harris and her children, 13-year-old John Paul Bennett and 11-year-old Lacey Bennett, who he also raped, at the family home on 18 September 2021.

Lacey’s friend Connie Gent, 11, who was staying over, was killed too.

Day eight of the inquests into the deaths was told by Ms Pashley it was 10 weeks between Bendall’s referral to the Derbyshire Recovery Partnership (DRP), a requirement from the court to address alcohol dependency, and his first meeting – something she said was “unusual”.

The inquests were told Bendall was offered a number of meetings so his substance use could be assessed by the DRP but he missed all of them, citing different reasons, such as a lack of money or ability to travel to the appointment, the court heard.

When he finally attended a meeting, on 17 September, Bendall told Ms Pashley the last time he had drunk alcohol heavily was the previous Christmas and that he had stopped smoking cannabis a week before the assessment because he was starting a job as a forklift driver and wanted to pass any random drug tests.

Ms Pashley, who had been in the job since July 2021, said she had no reason to doubt what Bendall told her – but had not been informed by the probation service he had admitted to them on 2 August that he had started smoking cannabis again.

She was also not told about a comment Bendall made to a probation officer about his plans to buy a 65% proof bottle of rum he had seen in his local corner shop.

Ms Pashley said that, because Bendall was on a six-month alcohol treatment requirement order, she had the power to breathalyse him at their meeting, though he could refuse a drug test.

Asked if she was made aware of his admissions to the probation service about his drug and alcohol use, Ms Pashley said she was not.

She said: “It would have been useful to know that as what he told me on 17 September was different to what he told his probation officer, so I would have questioned him more and it may have prompted me to drug test him.

“If I received that information before the assessment, I would have read through it and been aware of the discrepancies in what he was saying to me.

“Due to his appearance on the day and what he told me, I had no reason to suspect what he was telling me wasn’t true.

“There was nothing on the referral form [from the probation service] that said he was dependent on alcohol. There was nothing that made me question what he was saying.”

Ms Pashley said she had already deemed Bendall to be a “high risk” to himself and others because he had been open with her during their 45-minute meeting about his history of violence and his potential for future offences and that he had been in a gang when he was younger.

She told the inquests Bendall had given her “full disclosure” to contact Ms Harris if needed because she was his next of kin, but she said future meetings with Bendall would have involved a visit to the home in Chandos Crescent he was sharing with his partner and her children.

Those meetings did not happen because Ms Pashley was told on 20 September that Bendall had killed four people.

Bendall was given a whole-life sentence for the murders and rape in December 2022.

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