Grieving mum says domestic abuse victims must be believed after daughter killed despite warning police repeatedly

“That gave me hope that my daughter’s huge heart, through her initials, could do something, even now, to help save people like she wanted to do.”

Bethany was a highly intelligent and caring 21-year-old from Leeds, studying environmental geography at the University of York.

“She always wanted to help disadvantaged people,” Pauline says, “that was what she was doing sadly the day her life was taken.”

In September 2019, Bethany was organising a gig in Huddersfield for people with disabilities and learning difficulties when she was attacked and stabbed to death with a kitchen knife by her former partner Paul Crowther.

She had recently ended their relationship and was subjected to a barrage of abuse and threats from the “manipulative, abusive and controlling” 36-year-old before the attack.

In the month before her death, she told West Yorkshire Police: “He has an obsession with killing someone and what it would feel like.

“I genuinely don’t know what to do. I am scared and frightened of what he will do and it’s made me fearful for others.”

During his sentencing hearing, after Crowther had pleaded guilty to manslaughter by diminished responsibility, it was heard that he saw the psychiatric liaison team at Dewsbury District Hospital on three occasions, where he said he wanted to attack others and kill himself, but was not detained.

When Pauline heard her beloved daughter had been killed, she said to the police: “‘Is that Paul Crowther?’ and they nodded.”

She continued: “And I said, ‘she came to you, for help’. They just put their heads down. In that moment, I died.”

“When my daughter first passed I was absolutely beside myself with grief,” Pauline, 60, recalls to The Yorkshire Post.

“I didn’t sleep for days, I didn’t eat for days, I was slowly dying.

“And then I thought my daughter’s life has had to have had some meaning, some purpose.

“I have to make my daughter’s life mean something.

“She wanted to help everybody, to help with climate change and that’s what she was studying and working towards.”

Pauline explains that when she was talking to other bereaved parents through the Killed Women campaign “the common denominator throughout is that their loved ones weren’t believed, they weren’t taken seriously”.

That is when she came up with the slogan - Believe, React, Fast - using the initials of her daughter, Bethany Rae Fields.

Pauline explains that it starts with the presumption of believing the victim.

“When I was reading the reports into Bethany’s death, there was a lot in there about belief, believing the perpetrator over Bethany,” she says.

Next, for “react”, Pauline wants a highly-trained officer to be assigned to the victim.

“It mustn’t be a probationary officer, I feel quite strongly about that,” she says.

“My daughter was given a probationary officer and this is where I am, in the future, going to be doing some police training for West Yorkshire Police.”

Then it’s simple, Pauline says, the authorities must react fast.

The grieving mother says she wants to use BRF to change the “attitudes and culture of the police”.

“When there’s a young woman, or even if it’s a man but it’s predominantly women, if they go to the police, they should have confidence in that police force that they will be believed,” she explained.

“There obviously isn’t that confidence at the moment.”

Quickly, Pauline’s BRF campaign has started to get some momentum.

As well as the training she is going to be doing with West Yorkshire Police, Pauline met with the Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips.

It has also been picked up by her MP, Katie White, who told The Yorkshire Post: “Pauline’s courage in turning unimaginable loss into a call for change just represents the incredible woman she is.

“Bethany’s tragic death was preventable, and we owe it to her and countless others to ensure that victims of domestic abuse are believed, supported, and protected without delay.

“The BRF principle—Believe, React, Fast—could save lives, and I am proud to stand with Pauline in calling for this to become a guiding standard for authorities.

“Together, we must turn Bethany’s memory into a force for lasting reform."

This culminated in the Leeds North West MP’s question to Sir Keir at PMQs last year.

The Prime Minister responded: “What happened to Bethany is appalling and my thoughts are with her family.

“We do need a culture shift here, and we have committed to halving violence against women and girls in a decade, no government has ever made that commitment before.

“I hope that is something that can be shared across the House, because this is so important and it starts with that central question of belief and confidence for every woman.”

Pauline recalls watching this: “I was in tears because I thought: are they going to take this seriously? Are they going to implement it?

“It gave me hope, it gave me hope and in almost five years I’ve had no reason to smile or be happy.

“That gave me hope that my daughter’s huge heart through her initials could do something, even now, to help save people like she wanted to do.”

“I’m hoping with Katie White, Jess Phillips and of course Keir Starmer behind us, that it will be taken forward,” Pauline adds.

“That’s the hope, that’s my hope for Bethany.”

A spokesperson for West Yorkshire Police said: “Our sympathies go out to the family of Bethany Fields for the devastating and tragic loss they have suffered.

“Since Bethany's appalling death in September 2019, West Yorkshire Police has developed and amended its approach to domestic abuse in many ways.

“Domestic homicides always provide a sharp focus on areas of operational and investigative practice that could be improved and made better, but continual learning is a feature of the force's approach to this insidious crime.

“We are however acutely aware that continual learning will not bring back loved ones taken in such horrific circumstances.”