Teenager Gaia Pope knocked on the door of the octogenarian she had grown to think of as her second grandmother on the day of her disappearance in November 2017.
Gaia and Maya’s elementary school in Swanage, Dorset, used to be picked up by Rosemary Dinch, along with her grandson Nathan.
She would accompany the kids on outings to the neighbourhood Poole Park during the summer vacation, buy them ice cream, and keep an eye on them as they played.
But on Tuesday, November 7, 2017, the fragile 71-year-old and her family’s horrible ordeal began the moment she opened the door to 19-year-old Gaia.
Because when Gaia vanished later that day, Rosemary, her son Paul, and grandson Nathan Elsey unexpectedly found themselves in the centre of Dorset Police’s failed investigation.
Gaia was later found dead from hypothermia on an isolated clifftop 11 days later.
The subsequent events were traumatising in every way.
Hours of interrogation, residences searched, excruciating medical examinations, and, in the end, a family haunted by a constant finger of suspicion aimed by those who think there can’t be fire without smoke.
Because Rosemary, her son, and grandson were under investigation for two years before being released without charges, despite the fact that a pathologist determined that Gaia, who had severe epilepsy, had died naturally, despite CCTV footage showing Gaia leaving Mrs. Dinch’s home unharmed, and despite the fact that Gaia’s own family thought the arrests were outrageous. Rosemary also had severe epilepsy.
The Elsey family has chosen to speak exclusively to the Mail about their tragedy after an inquest last month uncovered tragic errors by both Dorset Police and local health authorities in the days preceding Gaia’s death.
In addition to being furious that opportunities to find Gaia were lost while time-strapped officers focused their unwarranted attention on them, they claim that the harrowing experience caused Rosemary, who had a lung condition and needed an oxygen machine at home, to pass away suddenly last November.
Rosemary’s 55-year-old daughter Deborah Elsey, who lives in the same Swanage street as her mother, says, “It was a witch-hunt from start to finish.”
She claims that her mother’s only transgression was to let Gaia in that day; nonetheless, the entire neighbourhood shunned her as a result.
We had Facebook users who believed we should all be hanged.
Deborah, who owns a nail salon, claims that her mother never recovered from the thousands of pounds worth of damage that police caused to her home, including the removal of pipes, the ransacking of drawers and cabinets, and the derailing of her stair lift.
In their fruitless search for clues, the officers even dipped their fingers into Rosemary’s homemade Christmas pudding.
Deborah complains that “they turned our houses into crime scenes.” My mattress had a hole cut out of it. But they also utilised the radio and availed themselves tea and coffee.
Deborah claims that the event has left her family dealing with ongoing worry and anxiety.
Her son Nathan, 24, is a shell of the performer he once was and almost ever leaves the house. Nathan was an extra alongside Harry Styles in the 2017 movie Dunkirk.
Paul, Deborah’s 54-year-old brother and a carpenter who has subsequently had difficulty finding employment locally, has left the area.
Deborah discovered a message that her mother, a lawyer who earned her law degree at age 50 and worked for her neighbourhood Citizen’s Advice office, had written after Rosemary’s passing: “Why is this happening to me? Nothing I’ve done has been wrong.
Deborah sobs, “Dorset Police has devastated our lives.” “My mother’s amazement about it never subsided.” After that, she was shunned by the neighbourhood.
When she once entered a café, patrons moved tables out of her way.
When she inquired about counselling, the cops chuckled and remarked, “You’re not a victim.”
The police have not yet apologised to the family. In addition, they haven’t been informed of the outcome of their complaint to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
This week, an IOPC representative told the Mail that the inquest’s report, which contains material that the coroner intended to hear, was to blame for the delay.
We have informed the complaint that they will soon receive our report now that Gaia’s inquest is over, he said.
Deborah, however, claims that the delay caused her mother to pass away inconsolably.
Nobody has expressed regret. No one has been made accountable, she continues. We have been left to deal with how what happened has changed us.
We experience no joy in life. We are all suffering. Prior to her death, my mother appeared to be 90.
Deborah recalls every aspect of the November 7 afternoon when Gaia showed up at Rosemary’s door. She was only there for about ten minutes.
Deborah claims that nothing she said made sense. She tumbled down the wall after colliding with it. She may have been experiencing a seizure, I believe.
Gaia claimed she was going to see another buddy after her mother comforted her.
Mom pleaded with her to put her coat back on after she removed it because she was whining that she was too hot, but she refused.
Deborah contacted Gaia’s mother, Natasha, after her mother informed her of what had occurred.
“I remarked Gaia sounded off, and she claimed she truly wasn’t feeling well. I explained to her what she had said to Mom when she asked me where she had gone.
Gaia’s frightened family called the police after she didn’t arrive home in time for a 5 o’clock appointment with mental health professionals.
Deborah drove about in the hours and days that followed, looking for Gaia, while maintaining contact with Natasha.
She provided the police with statements, along with those of her family.
In the meantime, officers concentrated on Rosemary and her family. Nothing was discovered despite thorough searches of both of their residences and Gaia’s.
Six days after Gaia went missing, on November 13, 2017, Rosemary and Nathan were taken into custody. Paul, Rosemary’s son who at the time was residing with his mother, was taken into custody three days later.
He remembers how Rosemary was’surrounded’ by police as she approached her house in a number of automobiles.
He remembers the woman shouting, “Paul, I’ve been arrested for kidnap and murder.”
She was running out of oxygen, and I could see that she was ready to pass out. For the love of God, I cried out. Keep her raised.
Nathan was taken out of the house across the street shortly after that in handcuffs.
Deborah received a call from Dorset CID asking her to bring in her mother’s oxygen equipment as Rosemary and Nathan were being detained on suspicion of murder and transported for questioning to Poole police station.
Deborah was on her way home from work at the time.
She says, “I couldn’t believe it.” It seemed like it belonged on television. I was shocked.
Later, when their mother had been granted bail, she came at a Premier Inn and instructed her and Paul to stay there.
Police investigated their residences once more in the meantime, removing and chopping up drainage pipes.
Deborah recalls, “When I went back, they had unplugged my boiler, so we had no heating.”
The milk I poured down the sink leaked all over the place. I was informed by a police officer that I would require a plumber.
That’s when I realised the pipes had been removed. They believed that we had attempted to flush Gaia down the pipes after cutting her up.
According to Deborah, both her mother’s and her own homes were left in disarray with the bathroom panels removed and the paperwork mixed up and put back in separate drawers.
She claims that it “felt like psychological warfare.”
Paul was brought into custody at his Southampton law firm three days after Rosemary and Nathan were taken into custody, and his car was seized.
He told the Mail that “there was no evidence.” It was a “witch hunt,”
Paul was released on police bail without being charged, just like his mother and nephew.
He and Nathan underwent a strip search in front of female cops, and both felt “humiliated” afterwards.
Despite their innocence, authorities can keep the images of their genitalia for up to seven years in order to look for indicators of sexual offences.
However, the inquest held last month was what really reopened the family’s wounds.
A senior Dorset police officer tried to defend the choice to concentrate on the Elsey family when the coroner questioned them about their bungled investigation, claiming there had been “extremely powerful” reasons for detaining the three innocent family members.
Asserting that it was his responsibility to “create hypotheses and apply tactics to confirm or refute them,” Detective Chief Inspector Neil Devoto said he stood by his decision to arrest the trio, characterising their activities as “suspicious.”
Deborah claims that his remarks were damaging for her family.
We were startled that he was permitted to question us once more in front of the public, she says.
The IOPC predicted that the inquest would clear us, but that man has instead raised new doubts about us. The Dorset Police are unwilling to acknowledge a mistake.
The Elseys paid solicitors £3,000 after learning that the police had built their case against them on untrue accusations made against them by neighbours with whom they had a protracted conflict—a dispute that, according to Deborah, Dorset Police was aware of.
The absurd accusations included the assertion that a small girl had been wailing inside Mrs. Dinch’s home for hours when, in reality, Gaia had only been there for ten minutes.
The claim that Paul had been spotted taking plastic sheets and an electric saw out of the boot of his car was also incorrect. Deborah claims that nothing of it was real.
The fact that Gaia’s family informed police of her delicate mental health and advised them of where to seek for her makes the Elsey family’s arrests all the more distressing.
Since then, they have claimed that the police were unconcerned with their suggestion that she might have run away to a clifftop attraction she frequently visited with her grandfather.
location is not far from where her body was discovered 11 days later.
A QC at the inquest last month said that a police officer had “beefed up” data to make the police search appear more thorough, and the officer later acknowledged to changing search logs.
The fact that Gaia herself had called the police on the day she passed away is arguably the most astonishing of all. In order to denounce online sexual harassment, she was attempting to confirm the specifics of an appointment.
It was later revealed that the police officer Gaia spoke to believed she was making things up thanks to an anonymous police whistleblower.
They advised coworkers to transfer any further calls from Gaia and her family since they were “talking nonsense” and should not be answered.
Gaia had previously requested assistance from Dorset Police in 2014 after reporting that she had been sexually assaulted by a guy who had made death threats against her.
After five months, they dismissed the case, but the man ultimately wound up in jail for additional child sex offences.
Gaia had also called 999 on the day of her disappearance while experiencing a severe mental health crisis. A study by the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust determined that it had failed to take necessary safeguarding action.
The police instead decided to pounce on Rosemary and her family, despite the fact that the greatest risk Gaia faced was undoubtedly to herself.
On November 18, the day Paul Elsey was let go from detention, Gaia’s body was found.
Nathan just collapsed on the ground and sobbed, according to Deborah. The fact that she was dead obviously upset us, but we also unanimously reasoned that the police and everyone else would now know we hadn’t hurt her.
We had no notion that this situation would last so long. Life has become controlled by it.
The family sold Rosemary’s house after her passing last year. Deborah also has plans to downsize and relocate in the hopes of starting over fresh.
She claims that the inquest was a whitewash. “Dorset Police has not faced consequences.” Neither Gaia nor ourselves are treated with justice.
Senior coroner Rachael Griffin stated that while it was “arguable that acts or omissions by Dorset Police may have been or were contributory to Gaia’s death,” there was insufficient proof to conclude that the force’s shortcomings in the hunt for Gaia were to blame for her demise.
The family of Gaia is also furious.
Her cousin Marienna Pope-Weidemann speaks for the Pope family when she says, “We stand in support of the Elsey family who, like us, need justice and the support of our community until they find it.”