The mother of a 12-year-old girl who allegedly killed herself after she was bullied and raped by an older boy broke down today as she told how the attack “destroyed her”.
Semina Halliwell from Southport, Merseyside, asked doctors if she was “going to die” after taking a cocktail of prescription drugs that belonged to her mum in June 2021. The youngster was rushed to hospital, where doctors spent four nights trying to save her before she died of ‘multiple organ failure’, an inquest into her death heard on Monday.
Her distraught mum, Rachel Halliwell told the coroner that an older boy with a “frightening reputation” in the seaside town had taken her into the woods before raping her, just months before she overdosed. She sobbed: “She said that he took her into the woods and sat her on a tree stump. He pulled his trousers down… she said she kept saying ‘no’.
“She said he tried to rip her underwear and leggings. She said she was scared and he was horrible.” Asked how it affected her, Ms Halliwell added: “It destroyed her mentally and physically, she changed to a different person. She felt bad about herself… she felt used.”
Semina’s mum Rachel Halliwell from Southport. Photo by Colin Lane
(
Image:
Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
The court heard that the alleged attack happened in January 2021 just five months before Semina died. In the months before her death, Ms Halliwell also told the inquest that she noticed bruises on her daughter’s neck, self harm scars from her ‘wrists to her elbows’ and said she had attempted to take her life in March in a separate overdosing incident.
She said she later learned that her daughter had been beaten by children from a number of schools of three separate occasions. She also told how a naked photo of Semina had been sent around Stanley High School where she was a pupil.
But she claimed that when she spoke to the school about this incident, she received “no help or support” and was told she would need to report the incident to the police. Ms Halliwell also slammed the police response when she reported her daughter’s rape allegation as “unprofessional” and described the attending officers as acting “blasé” about the matter.
She told the inquest: “The way they spoke to her and the way they presented themselves to her, in my view, was unprofessional and not how you should speak to a 12-year-old child who has gone through a rape. I felt like they didn’t care, like it was an inconvenience to them.. almost like they couldn’t be bothered.
Ms Halliwell also claimed that Detective Constable Lovehead had told Semina: “it would be her word against his” Ms Halliwell said “He said it would take 18 months to two years to go to court and did she really want that hanging over her.”
She said the effect was her daughter felt that the police didn’t believe her. The court heard that on June 9, Semina’s mum found her daughter at their home surrounded by empty medication packets and called paramedics who rushed her to the A&E department at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool.
Only a day later, consultant paediatrician Dr Mark Deakin told the court that Semina asked him if she was going to die and told him she regretted taking the tablets. In a written statement, Dr Deakin said: “She had only intended to take the tablets to make her sleep for a couple of days.”
But Semina later suffered two cardiac arrests had to be intubated and ventilated, until doctors informed her mum and aunt that they would have to turn off her life support. After her death, Ms Halliwell published footage of her daughter being dragged to the ground, hit and kicked.
She said at the time: “I want the whole country to see what my daughter went through. I will not stop until I get justice for my baby. She will never be forgotten.”
Merseyside Police said it would not be appropriate to comment on the case while the coroner’s inquest is ongoing. A spokesperson for the force said: “A formal complaint relating to the police investigation has been received and the concerns expressed are being investigated by the force’s Professional Standards Department. We have informed the Independent Office for Police Conduct and are keeping them updated.” The inquest with coroner Ms Johanna Thompson at Bootle Town Hall is expected to finish on January 21.
*For confidential support, Samaritans are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week on 116 123.