On Tuesday 15 October, a jury sitting at South London Coroner’s Court in Croydon returned conclusions that Chenise Gregory, 29, was unlawfully killed and that failures on the part of Metropolitan Police may have contributed to her death.

Chenise died on 4 May 2021 after suffering 22 stab wounds inflicted by Michael McGibbon, her partner, who had recently been released from prison on licence. McGibbon then killed himself.

The inquest heard evidence from two agencies involved in the management of McGibbon as a registered sex offender on licence: the Metropolitan Police Service and the National Probation Service. This included evidence that police officers attended McGibbon’s address approximately a week before the deaths and discovered three large knives in his bedroom. However, this information did not reach McGibbon’s probation officer, who gave evidence that he may have recalled McGibbon to prison if he had been aware of the details of the police attendance.

The jury found it to be possible that Chenise may not have died had an intelligence report about the police attendance been sent to the correct specialist team. The jury further found that there was a failure by the Metropolitan Police to have a proper process in place to act upon emails received by one of its specialist teams.

Serena Sekhon represented Chenise’s family, led by Maya Sikand KC and instructed by Robert Hamill of Gold Jennings.