Bethany Vincent: How mum tried to escape her murdering ex

Bethany Vincent and her son, Darren Henson, were murdered by her ex-partner. It was the culmination of almost two years of domestic violence, abuse, and her attempts to escape him. Two restraining orders should have kept them safe, but in the end were not enough.

Bethany Vincent's final, desperate shouts fell on deaf ears at first.

Neighbours had not paid much mind to scenes that morning, when her on-off boyfriend appeared on her doorstep, demanding to be let in. His presence was nothing out of the ordinary. He was known to be "shouty" and a nuisance. His return later the same evening raised no eyebrows.

It was two young girls on their way to a local park who eventually heard the cries coming from an open window. They dialled 999.

By the time the screams had subsided, the young mother and her nine-year-old son, Darren Henson, were dead. Both had been repeatedly stabbed, sustaining fatal wounds to the heart.

The girls ran off scared when a man holding a blue rope came into view. A short time later he emerged from the property in High Holme Road, Louth, looking "flushed and agitated", according to witnesses. "Someone's been stabbed," he told one passer-by, before fleeing the scene.

Earlier, that man, Daniel Boulton, had walked 28 miles from a homeless hostel in Skegness to his 26-year-old ex's doorstep. She had spent much of the previous two years trying to escape him, and was preparing to move house and make a fresh start at the time of the attack on 31 May 2021. Boulton, who spent most of the afternoon loitering in Louth before breaking into her home later that evening, stabbed Bethany nine times and Darren 14 times with a kitchen knife.

Bethany's cries for help were not her first. Boulton had a history of violence and she had told officers she wanted him out of her life. The complaints resulted in two restraining orders and social services identified Boulton as posing a high risk to Bethany and her family. But he ignored the orders and was able to mount a continuing campaign of harassment.

The pair had started a relationship in 2019, which quickly soured and was marked by Boulton's acts of violence towards Bethany and Darren, also known as DJ. Boulton had grown to hate the boy, whose severe autism affected his behaviour, which he believed would "rub off" onto his own young child. As Boulton's animosity towards Bethany's son intensified so did his fury towards her.

Bethany's mother became increasingly concerned by her daughter's boyfriend and his "possessive" nature, and experienced one outburst of domestic violence first-hand during a visit to the couple. She was confronted "nose-to-nose" by Boulton after he threw Bethany on to a sofa.

In November 2020, an argument over DJ escalated into a violent attack on Bethany. Boulton banged her head against a wall and punched her multiple times. As she walked to the police station, he followed behind, telling her how miserable he was and that he wanted to end his life.

As a result, Boulton, then aged 29, was made subject of the first restraining order, banning him from contacting her.

Three months later, in February 2021, a further restraining order was issued against him after he was prosecuted again for battery. In a statement to police Bethany said: "Nobody has the right to hurt me like this... I don't want him anywhere near me and my family... I'm willing to attend court as I really want him out of my life".

But Boulton repeatedly breached the injunctions and continued to contact Bethany via text, phone and social media. In the days leading up to the killings, he sent nearly 900 messages over the course of a weekend using a fake Facebook account. One read: "You destroyed my life and have the cheek to say I ruined yours". Bethany did not reply to any of the messages.

The case has raised questions of whether more could have been done to prevent Bethany and DJ's deaths. This was not a case where their killer was unknown to authorities. A year before he met Bethany, Boulton's relationship with another woman ended due to an act of domestic violence. He was prosecuted for battery. Boulton had racked up other offences too. Assaulting police officers in 2011 and 2016, hitting someone over the head with a vodka bottle and demanding a man hand over his phone at knifepoint.

He also made troubling comments about "wiping out" Bethany's bloodline which were fed back to support workers. He told a friend he hated DJ and wanted him dead.

Boulton blamed his upbringing - "being passed around like Oliver Twist" - and bullying for his "Jekyll and Hyde personality". Former friends Emma Distance and Ashley Henson told Boulton's trial he had a "fiery temper and liked to fight". They described his relationship with Bethany as "toxic", with regular arguments over DJ. Though they never witnessed physical abuse, they heard Boulton "belittle Beth and verbally degrade her, call her stupid and other names and shout at her".

A question hanging over the case is why the two restraining orders against Boulton apparently did nothing to stop him from killing Bethany? There has been no official confirmation of whether his various breaches were reported. According to the Centre for Women's Justice (CWJ), it is not unusual for victims to have "a lack of faith and trust" in the justice system.

CWJ solicitor Nogah Ofer said: "When there are breaches of orders police are not taking action and it makes women feel reluctant to report it."

Boulton's prosecutions for assaults against Bethany show that police acted upon those reports. But the CWJ feels that more emphasis should be placed on protecting women and girls.

"If you look at how many women are killed every year by a partner or an ex partner it's around 80 or more. I think we can all imagine if there were 80 people being killed in a terrorist incidents, every year, you can imagine the sheer amount of resources that will be put into that," says Ms Ofer.

The CWJ lodged a super-complaint in April 2019 addressing alleged failings by UK police forces in their use of protective measures to safeguard women and girls. It was upheld by the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, College of Policing and Independent Office for Police Conduct, which published a joint report admitting support for victims was "sometimes not good enough" and there was "a lack of understanding within police forces over how and when to use protective measures".

A strategy for tackling violence against women and girls has since been unveiled by the government, and a follow-up to the police inspectorate's report, published in the wake of Sarah Everard's murder, set out further recommendations to "improving and standardising" the use of protective measures and responding to breaches including making arrests.

"There needs to be basic training that all front-line police officers and all domestic abuse officers receive and also there needs to be much better guidance and monitoring and supervision of how orders are used and how breaches are responded to," Ms Ofer said.

In Bethany's case, a Lincolnshire County Council safeguarding practice and domestic homicide review, to be published later this year, will examine the response of agencies and "identify any improvements that should be made" in an attempt to prevent further deaths like Bethany's.

Lincolnshire Police have declined to comment on the force's use of restraining orders and breaches by Boulton.

A force spokesperson said at the end of Boulton's trial they hoped his conviction would give Bethany and Darren's families "some closure".

DJ's father, Kieran Henson, however, said: "No sentence in the world will be enough for what he has done to my son and Beth."

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