Father of Eleanor de Freitas loses battle for fresh inquest
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Version 0 of 1. The father of a woman who killed herself days before she was due in court on suspicion of making a false rape claim has lost his legal battle for a new inquest into her death. David de Freitas wanted the first inquest into the death of 23-year-old Eleanor to be quashed to allow for a new investigation into the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision to prosecute her. Two judges at the high court in London expressed their deepest sympathies to the family but rejected his case as “unarguable”. At the first inquest, coroner Chinyere Inyama declined to call the CPS to give evidence over how it handled the case. Lord Justice Gross and Mr Justice Nicol ruled that the coroner did not err in law in making that decision. The inquest found that Eleanor de Freitas’s impending trial for perverting the course of justice was a “stressor” in her life before she killed herself at the family home in Fulham, west London, on 4 April 2014. The coroner recorded a verdict of suicide. De Freitas, a trainee accountant who had bipolar disorder, had told police she had been raped by Alexander Economou, 35, the son of a Greek shipping magnate. He responded by bringing a private prosecution for making false claims, which was taken over by the CPS. David de Freitas argued that the coroner should have considered the role of the CPS in the prosecution, particularly in the light of his ultimate conclusion that the imminent trial was a significant stressor. Gross said the court had the “greatest sympathy for the family” but that “no good purpose would be served by permitting the case to go further when it is bound to fail”. Nicol announced that the inquest into De Freitas’s death was lawfully conducted. After the ruling, David de Freitas, 60, a financial planner, said: “We are disappointed with the decision. I believe that we have shown that there are questions that still need to be answered regarding CPS conduct in this case. Apparently, there is no forum for doing that.” He said the family “will continue to explore other avenues”. |