A survivor of the Rochdale grooming scandal has tragically ended her life after years of struggling with the trauma of her abuse, a coroner has confirmed.
Charlotte Tetley, 33, was struck and killed by a train in Macclesfield last year after deliberately sitting on the tracks. An inquest this week heard she had been battling serious mental health conditions and substance misuse, which she developed as a way of coping with her childhood abuse.
Ms Tetley had only recently moved from Rochdale to Macclesfield in 2023, after one of her abusers returned to the town. She was officially identified in court for the first time as one of the victims of the grooming gang whose crimes shocked the nation and led to dozens of convictions.
Coroner Sarah Murphy said Ms Tetley’s care raised serious concerns. Despite telling doctors she was suicidal, she was discharged from hospital without being given a mental health bed. In June 2024 she even warned medics she was thinking of jumping in front of a train, but her treatment was limited to short daily reviews.
Her behaviour showed escalating risk. She phoned her probation officer “screaming” that she planned to take her life, and on one occasion was removed from railway tracks by community staff. Police and ambulance services later recorded her as a high-risk missing person but did not send officers to search for her.
In a Prevention of Future Deaths report, Ms Murphy warned the system risked failing other vulnerable people: “There is a risk that patients are removed from the inpatient bed list before an appropriate review that day by a mental health professional.”
The coroner has written to the Chief Executive of Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Trust, giving the organisation until 9 November to respond to her concerns.
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