by Sally Middleton, solicitor, Birnberg Peirce
“Fri accepts that she was responsible for killing Kyle. What she disputes is that she was fully responsible for her actions”
On June 9th 2015 Farieissia Martin, at the age of 22, was convicted of the murder of Kyle Farrell, her violent partner. She had been in a relationship with him since she was 16. It has been a long and difficult wait for Fri but her appeal against her conviction is now going to be heard by the Court of Appeal on 16th and 17th December 2020 - over a year after she was granted leave to appeal.
Fri accepts that she was responsible for killing Kyle. What Fri disputes is that she was fully responsible for her actions. Fri’s appeal is about fresh expert evidence which illustrates the full extent of Kyle’s domestic abuse and sexual violence, the impact of this on Fri’s mental health and on her conduct at the time she stabbed Kyle.
The Trial
Fri’s first account of the violence was given when she was interviewed by the police in the aftermath of being arrested for murder. Like many victims she struggled to give an account of the full extent of Kyle’s abuse and initially lied about the likely cause of the stabbing. Eventually, during her interview, she was able to describe some of the serious physical and, controlling and coercive behaviour she experienced, including that Kyle had kicked her in the stomach when she was pregnant with their child. Fri told the police that she had lost interest in her appearance, had become depressed and that these changes to her mood, character, and Kyle’s violence had been witnessed by her friends and family.
The problems that Fri experienced in the preparation of her trial and presentation of her defence were emblematic of the difficulties often faced by women who are prosecuted for killing an abusive partner.
Fri was grief stricken at Kyle’s loss and being separated from her very young children, who were then only 1 and 2 years old. She felt uncomfortable with her all male defence team and was dealt a blow when the Court refused her application to transfer legal aid to a female solicitor she trusted.
Most problematic was the failure by Fri’s defence team to obtain expert psychiatric and psychological evidence. This process of evidence gathering is critical in helping a victim of domestic violence establish the trust needed to disclosure a full account of their suffering, understand and process the impact of abuse and explain it to a jury. In the absence of this evidence Fri alone had this responsibility. This was at a time when she was most vulnerable and therefore least able to understand how she had been affected by the abuse she experienced.
The Appeal
Following her conviction Fri’s family contacted Justice for Women and the solicitor, Harriet Wistrich. A psychiatric and a psychological report was obtained by the new legal team which set out the extent and nature of the sexual, physical and psychological abuse that Fri had suffered. Characteristically for victims of abuse, it took a very long time for Fri to feel comfortable and safe enough to disclose all of the details of the abuse to her psychiatrist. In particular, the fact that she had been raped when she was 15 by a family friend. It was only after spending many months working with a counsellor specialising in domestic violence from the charity, ‘Women in Prison’ at HMP Styal that she was able to disclose.
The psychiatrist and psychologist agree that at the time of Kyle’s death, Fri was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and dissociation as a result of being the victim of sustained sexual, psychological and physical abuse. It was on the grounds of the diagnosis of PTSD that both experts supported the partial defence of Diminished Responsibility and loss of control. It is this fresh evidence that Fri wishes to adduce at her hearing.
“as a result of COVID-19. Fri, like every other prisoner, [Fri] has spent almost the entire year without seeing her children or any of her family and friends and has been required to remain isolated in her cell for 23 ½ hours a day “
Fri’s case came before the Court of Appeal for an application for permission to appeal in December 2019. Lady Justice Simler, who heard the application, described Fri’s account to the defence experts as a “paradigm case of coercive control”. Of particular significance, was a statement Fri wrote to her solicitors, alone in her prison cell before her trial, in which she disclosed the sexual violence she suffered from Kyle.
The Court of Appeal also recognised that Fri could not have been expected to tell her legal team that she was raped when she was 15. In the judgment of L.J Simler: “she did not recognise the forensic significance of the incident as it happened years before and was not committed by the deceased. Vulnerable young woman may not have realised it was relevant”. The Court further held that it was arguable that had the evidence been admitted at trial, it would have had a substantial effect on ‘loss of control’ because the evidence of ‘PTSD’ and dissociative behaviour would have gone to the gravity of the trigger for the partial defence.
Following permission to Appeal, the Crown instructed a psychiatrist and a psychologist to assess Fri. Both these experts agree that Fri was suffering from PTSD at the time of her offence as a result of being the victim of sexual and physical abuse. Both agree that Fri’s experience of PTSD is connected to the partial defence of loss of control. The key only area of dispute concerns the Crown’s psychiatrists view that PTSD (which he accepts that Fri was suffering from at the time of her offence) does not meet the statutory criteria for the partial defence of Diminished Responsibility. This is despite their psychologist agreeing that it does. This will be a key issue for the Court of Appeal at the full hearing on 16th December.
The wait for this appeal has been especially traumatic for Fri because of the restrictions placed on prisoners as a result of COVID-19. Fri, like every other prisoner, has spent almost the entire year without seeing her children or any of her family and friends and has been required to remain isolated in her cell for 23 ½ hours a day.
We hope that the full court hearing Fri’s appeal will endorse L.J Simler’s observation that Fri’s account is a ‘paradigm’ example of coercive and controlling behaviour, quash Fri’s conviction as a result of the new evidence and refuse any application by the Crown to order a re-trial.
This blog was first published on the Centre for Women’s Justice website
Your support is crucial
Please support Fri in this important appeal. We can’t protest outside the Court of Appeal this year due to Covid-19 but we can still show that we stand united with Fri and other women like her, who have survived abuse but killed an abuser in the most desperate of circumstances.
How you can help Fri:
Email a message of support using this form
Take a photo holding a banner and tweet/message us by midnight Monday 14th December with the hashtag #JusticeForFri on
Email an image/message to justiceforwomencampaigns@gmail.com
These can be as simple or as creative as you like but let’s please unite in our support for Fri.
If you would like to send something by post please contact us first to ensure it will get to us: justiceforwomencampaigns@gmail.com
As we can’t all be there in person - all pictures and messages will be displayed outside the Court of Appeal and later shown to Fri and her family.