...and the philosophy graduate student who was its target ended up committing suicide after a number of difficult personal events, though it is hard to tell from this account (bear in mind it is The Daily Mail) what role, if any, the harassment played in the horribly tragic outcome. In this case, the philosopher, Jeffrey Ketland, was, according to the news account, issued a police warning under the UK's Harassment Act. If other news reports appear, please send them to me. (Thanks to Luke on Twitter for the pointer.)
UPDATE: Several readers have kindly sent this account from the Telegraph.
ANOTHER: Useful Guardian item on "harassment warnings" under UK law.
AND STILL MORE: Here, here and here. (Thanks to Robert McGarvey for the links.)
AND MORE ON 'HARASSMENT WARNINGS': A philosopher in the U.K. writes: "I'm no friend of the British police and I can quite see the potential for them to tar someone's name without due process here. But anyone overseas who gets the impression that there's an epidemic of unjust applications of such warnings would be getting the wrong idea. In fact, in cases of which I have knowledge, it was very difficult to prod the police to do anything at all. That's also consistent with the general reluctance of law enforcement to help women in cases of domestic violence etc."
MARCH 2 UPDATE: Paula Boddington, a philosopher at Oxford, writes:
As someone - one of the few - who attended the inquest into the death of Charlotte Coursier, I can tell you that the most accurate report of the evidence presented at the inquest is actually to be found in the Daily Mail although of course any report is only a part of all the evidence presented. It should be carefully noted that the newspaper reports are reports of what was presented as evidence at the inquest, and should not be read as attempts to provide a 'full picture' of circumstances around Charlotte's tragic death. The Daily Mail report is taken more or less straight from the evidence presented at the coroner's court. Readers often assume that the 'quality' papers must be giving the best reports, but this is not always true, because they are often shorter, and if readers look carefully, they'll see that some reports are signed by named reporters, and some are merely agency reports.
These reports should also be read very carefully, noting that they are reports of the evidence presented at inquest, as indicated by the use of quotation marks, and of phrases such as 'the inquest heard'.
Readers should also bear in mind the purpose of an inquest under UK law, which is very limited. It is restricted to coming to a conclusion about the identity of the deceased, the date and place of death, and the cause of death. A coroner is specifically not allowed by law to make further conclusions and in particular, an inquest does not assign blame or legal liability. An inquest is not adversarial, so evidence presented is not tested in the same way as it would be in a criminal or civil case, although interested parties do have a right to question witnesses, which however did not as a matter of fact occur in this inquest.
Evidence is thus presented which the coroner considers relevant to reaching a verdict about the cause of death. In the case of Charlotte Coursier, this included medical evidence as well as evidence from various witnesses including persons known to her in a personal capacity and a police officer. This is all a matter of public record. Inquests are open to members of the public. Evidence from witnesses in an inquest will be taken under oath. In the case of a suicide, evidence will obviously include evidence about a person's state of mind. In this case, it was obvious that Charlotte had had a number of difficult events to cope with. The police attending did not find a note.
I hope that might help to clarify this complex and tragic case.
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