The son of a woman murdered by her partner in Cornwall is suing the police and probation service, saying there were multiple chances to save her but she was let down.
Shaun Hall, now 18, watched his mother, Michaela Hall, being physically and mentally attacked when he was a child by Lee Kendall, her boyfriend of two years. Michaela, then 49, was eventually fatally stabbed in the eye with a kitchen knife by Kendall after a row over a meal she had made for him at her home in Mount Hawke, Cornwall.
Shaun was 13 at the time. He says he was shielded from much of the horror and his mum moved him out of the family home just seven months before, for his own safety. Now an adult, he says he is determined to expose the failings that could have saved her.
He is suing the police and probation service over missed opportunities, including on the night of Michaela's death, when two police officers were sent to her house but did not go inside. Officers left the scene that night, stating "she doesn't help herself".
Kendall, from Plymouth, was well known to police. He had 47 previous convictions across 78 offences, and authorities had recorded 16 assaults by him against Hall. He had been released from prison for assaulting her two weeks before the fatal attack, but moved back in with her after being wrongly classified as a "medium risk".
The probation report failed to include details of his previous violent behaviour against her, including an incident in which he strangled her. He was released two weeks before the murder and allowed to move back into her home without close monitoring.
Shaun said if Kendall had been properly categorised as high or very high risk, as probation services have now admitted he should have been, the extra restrictions and protections could have kept him away from his mum, and she could still be alive.
He said Kendall came "in and out" of his home life, which was broken by spells in prison, but he had always felt "uncomfortable" around him.
He said: "The night she was killed police came to the house[but did nothing.](https://www.corn
Son Who Witnessed Abuse Sues Police After Cornwall Murder