After a young women returned home to find her flatmate lying in a pool of blood, it quickly became clear that her attacker had been a trained soldier who had recently served in Afghanistan
An obsessed ex-boyfriend who made a five-hour journey to menace the woman who had rejected him left her a terrifying message saying: “I just wanted to give you flowers and chocolates to prove that I don’t want to kill you.”
Less than two weeks later, Alice Ruggles was dead. Her ex-partner, Trimaan “Harry” Dhillon, a British Army Lance Corporal who had plans to join the SAS, had scaled a wall behind her flat and climbed through a window before cutting her throat “five or six times” with a carving knife. She was 24.
A new documentary about the case tells how, in October 2015, Alice had gone on a trip to Sri Lanka with her close pal Gen. Naturally enough, they had posted dozens of photos of their trip on social media, and Gen recalled that Dhillon, who was “a friend of a friend”, had seen some of them and started messaging Alice after that.
“She thought he was very nice, very caring,” Gen told ITV True Crime. Another one of Alice’s friends, Harriot, described how the romance escalated very quickly: “[Alice] basically hit it off with him straightaway,” she said. Gen added: “She said they had an instant connection. Within the space of a month, it was a solid ‘I love you, you love me, we’re together, we’re going to be together forever’ sort of thing.”
It was a long-distance relationship at first — Dhillon had been stationed in Afghanistan when he started messaging Alice — but he came to stay with her in Gateshead while he was on leave.
Alice’s friends, Gen and Harriot, who had met her at Northumbria University, both recalled how she had slowly begun to become more withdrawn and pull away from their friendship group as the relationship with Dhillon became more intense.
Alice’s father, Clive, recalled: “It was really a little bit later before we started to realise ‘Hang on a minute, things aren’t right.’ He demanded to know where she was going and what she was doing. Unannounced, he’d just drive down to Newcastle and turn up.
“What he was actually doing was gradually isolating Alice and making her more and more dependent on him.”
But Alice’s growing dependence on Dhillon was shattered when she discovered that he was still active on dating websites and had been seeing other women behind her back. Deeply disappointed, Alice broke things off.
However, Dhillon began to bombard her with messages, telling Alice that he loved her and that he’d “never get over” losing her.
In August 2016, Alice told her friend Gen that she had discovered Dhillon was hacking into her Facebook account and spying on her private messages. The obsessed squaddie would drive 240 miles to Gateshead from Glencorse Barracks in Edinburgh, where he was stationed, with the express purpose of stalking Alice.
He had even contacted Alice’s mum, Sue, in the hope of getting a response from her. She says that she advised Dhillon to walk away from the doomed relationship, adding: “Then I put at the bottom, ‘Good luck, Harry,’ meaning… ‘Go away and get on with your life.’ But I have a horrible feeling he took that ‘Good luck, Harry’ to mean ‘Carry on’.”
Meanwhile, Dhillon continued to harass Alice, threatening to release intimate photos they had taken during their time together. In September 2016, just one month before her death, Alice told family members privately that she had met someone new. But it appears that Dhillon had gained access to her WhatsApp account as well because he soon found out about this new man in her life.
Her brother Nick said: “Alice was left in a position where her ex is weaponising her social life. She doesn’t know how to stop him. She doesn’t fully know what he’s got access to. She couldn’t hide anything from him.”
Alice contacted Northumbria Police, explaining that she was becoming increasingly anxious about the fact that Dhillon was stalking her. But despite Alice’s complaint that Dhillon was not only bombarding her with messages but also physically knocking on her doors and windows at night, officers told her that they could do very little about it.
Police did caution Dhillon, and Alice and her family believed that would put an end to his disturbing behaviour.
It was around this time that Dhillon left his chilling message, telling Alice: “After we spoke, you didn’t want to speak, so that’s why I decided to come down and give you flowers and chocolates. I just want to give you flowers and chocolates to prove that, you know, I don’t want to kill you. I’m not intending to kill you. That’s all I wanted to say.”
“He’s telling her how he would never kill her,” says Alice’s mum, Sue. “but why would you talk about that if you were not trying to frighten someone?” But still, she added, Alice’s family hadn’t realised quite how dangerous Dhillon was.
“Once Alice called the police,” Sue says, “that’s when he decided that he was going to kill her.”
After Dhillon violated the terms of the police caution by sending Alice another letter, she called 101 to inform police, but they dismissed her concerns. She told her sister Emma: “They’ll respond when he stabs me.”
Clive says: “All we know is Alice was so upset by this because the lady on the phone said, What do you expect us to do about it? Arrest him?” In a tone of voice that made it sound completely ridiculous to want that.”
At that point, Alice had five days left to live.
On the evening of October 12, Alice’s flatmate, Maxine McGill, returned home to find her lying in a pool of blood, with her throat slashed “from ear to ear.” Horrified, Maxine dialled 999.
She told the call handler: “My flatmate’s covered in blood in the bathroom… everything’s been knocked over. It looks as if she’s been attacked.”
“She’s not breathing, she’s actually blue. Please – I need somebody here right now.”
It quickly became evident that Dhillon was the prime suspect. When first interviewed, he denied all knowledge of Alice’s murder, later changing his account to claim that Alice had rushed at him with a knife and had simply become injured as he pushed the weapon away.
Alice’s mother, Sue, said she had been shocked by the evidence he gave at his trial: “Dhillon had put in this counter-claim that Alice had tried to murder him.
“It’s really difficult to think this was that person we met, to someone who is clearly an evil person. He spent two days standing just five metres in front of us in the courtroom spinning his story.
“He was totally unemotional. He’d keep putting nasty words into Alice’s mouth as he was describing his version of what happened.”
Sue and Clive later set up the Alice Ruggles Trust in their daughter’s memory.
Dhillon, 26, told the court: “I never at any point considered myself to be stalking her.” But the former soldier, who had used his military training to help reconnoitre his target, was found guilty at Newcastle Crown Court. Dhillon was jailed for life with a minimum of 22 years in April 2017 for what the judge called “an act of utter barbarism”.
If you have been affected by issues of domestic violence or coercive control, you can call Refuge’s 24-Hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline for free. The number is 0808 2000 247.
