THE mother of student Emily Grouet who was driven to suicide by her boyfriend's abusive behaviour has told of her anguish that closer contact with her might have prevented her death.
Fiona and Germain Drouet have spoken a week after 21-year-old Angus Milligan from Edinburgh attacked and abused his student girlfriend in Aberdeen days before she took her own life was spared jail and was sentenced to community service.
The 18-year-old's death came just eight days after being choked by Milligan in a jealous rage.
Angus Milligan and Emily Drouet
Mrs Drouet who has described Milligan as "one seriously sick and dangerous individual" has spoken of her own personal regret that she did not go through with one phone call on the day of one attack which she thought might have saved her life.
In interviews she said that if she'd seen her law student daughter more often - with her living three hours away in Aberdeen for university - she might have prevented her death.
She admitted that she as soon as they met Milligan they didn't like him.
"You know that way, they say trust your instincts. I will never not trust my instincts again. There was something about him.
"He stared, I was just very unsettled around him. He just had a very cold look in his eyes," she told Radio Scotland.
In an emotional recollection she said the aborted phone call was "one of my biggest regrets".
"That day I had spoken to her, just the normal chats we have. And later I was sitting while everyone else was in bed and I just felt this overwhelming feeling to talk to her. And .. I picked up the phone and dialled her number and I don't even know if it would have rung on her phone, and I just put the phone down and said, 'oh Fiona, give her peace'. And it was at that point that he barged into her room, so I will always feel ... I will always feel I could have saved her life if I had only phoned."
Speaking to ITV she added: "We didn’t see her every single day and I do believe if we had we would have seen the deterioration.
"Looking back, hindsight is a great thing.
"She couldn't keep eye contact with us when we did see her, but we just put it down to being tired and students partying."
A tearful Mrs Drouet said she had a "very open relationship" with her daughter, adding: "We were very close. Emily was my everything. That's why I didn't really look to question anything else.
"She was meeting boys she was meeting lots of girlfriends, she was saying, 'oh my gosh they're so lovely, they're really mature, there's none of that silliness at school'. She just seemed very comfortable with everything.
Milligan, a former public schoolboy, was given just 180 hours community service and a year’s supervision order at Aberdeen Sheriff Court after admitting admitted choking and slapping the student at the halls of residence in Aberdeen.
Ms Drouet was found dead in her room on March 17, 2016.
Mrs Drouet said when she was told of her death their first thought was that she had been murdered because she had no history of depression.
"It was complete disbelief. How could I talk to her one minute and then this happened. It just wasn't possible," said Mrs Drouet, who with her husband have had the tough taks of trying to explain to their other two children, Rachel, 14, and Calvin, 11, why Milligan is not in jail.
She said they had been prepared for the sentencing through friends in the legal profession and had formed a "realistic" view before going to court.
But she added: "Speaking to Women's Aid the percentage of violent assaults like this which result in a custodial [sentence] are very few. It is a saddening, worryingly low percentage. We were hopeful maybe they would see the nature of the assault, the strangulation, to me, .. it causes us huge concerns."
She said the family are now working with the Crown Office to get a Fatal Accident Inquiry into Emily’s death on March 17 last year to help other parents.
"That's mainly about concerns for all students. For all students there has to be better support out there for them. Emily was at risk and we feel other things could have been done. We feel a fatal accident inquiry is needed to unravel everything, just to safeguard our daughters."
Mrs Grouet, who is now working with Women’s Aid, will talk to students around the country about her and her daughter's experience.
The University of Aberdeen has said they were unable to comment specifically on Milligan due to data protection laws.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here