Scots mum stabbed 57 times by boyfriend 'should have been told about violence risk'

James Kennedy, 37, struck up a relationship with Joanne Gallacher, 33, after the pair met on a psychiatric ward.

A woman who was killed by her boyfriend should have been told he could be a threat, an inquiry heard.

James Kennedy, 37, struck up a relationship with Joanne Gallacher, 33, after the pair met on a psychiatric ward.

He later inflicted 57 wounds on her during a frenzied attack at his home in Biggar, Lanarkshire, in December 2018.

A fatal accident inquiry heard Gallacher should have been warned by medics about his risk of violence in the lead up to her death.

Consultant psychiatrist Dr Fernandez Rodriguez told the probe Kennedy had not requested Gallacher be involved in his care plan and that he would need his consent to share information.

Dr Ruth Ward, a retired consultant psychiatrist who wrote three reports into the case, told Hamilton Sheriff Court Gallacher should have been told about Kennedy after he was released from a stay in hospital.

Richard Templeton, advocate for the Gallacher family, asked Ward: "Should Dr Fernandez Rodriguez have taken steps to inform Joanne

Gallacher of the risk of violence at this time, the 21st of December, with or without his consent?"

Ward, 62, replied: "If he had been fully aware of the risk and that history of violence, which requires full communication and being fully trained, then yes in my view she should have been made aware.

"That is what I would want to do."

Ward said the fatal attack could not have been predicted and doctors believed Kennedy was at risk of self-harm.

She said no one could have said with 'any certainty' that Kennedy would attack Gallacher or anyone else.

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In evidence, Ward said: "For somebody like Mr Kennedy who had been unemployed and did not have any social support, for him to develop a relationship with a supportive other might have been a good thing if she was able to influence his drinking and drug use.

"This might have had a positive outcome but what happened could not have been predicted with any certainty."

Rodriguez had previously described his 'shock and horror' after he discovered Kennedy had killed Gallacher.

He said: "Something like that had never happened in my professional life and I hope it will never happen again."

Kennedy is being held in the State Hospital at Carstairs after admitting culpable homicide due to diminished responsibility at the High Court in Glasgow in 2019.

The inquiry before Sheriff Michael Higgins continues.

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