{"id":683882,"date":"2026-07-10T08:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T08:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/683882\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T08:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T08:16:09","slug":"devious-sex-offender-drugged-women-years-before-mums-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/683882\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Devious’ sex offender drugged women years before mum’s death"},"content":{"rendered":"

No-one will ever know how many women Richard Scatchard drugged and raped, but his convictions for attacks on women date back 40 years.<\/p>\n

Kelly Faiers, his final victim<\/a>, was unaware of his past – or how much danger she was in.<\/p>\n

Kelly, 61 and from Weston-super-Mare, was killed in October 2023 having been coerced into taking an excessive number of sleeping tablets after drinking, an inquest found<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Scatchard, 71, who she was dating at the time, went on the run within hours of her death and was found dead months later in a caravan in Watchet, Somerset.<\/p>\n

Coroner Samantha Marsh returned an open conclusion after an inquest was unable to determine how he died<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Warning: This story contains references to sexual violence<\/p>\n

Kelly’s son Mike said his mum was “a fun, bubbly woman”.<\/p>\n

“Everyone liked to be around her,” he added. “I don’t know anyone who’s got a bad word to say about her.”<\/p>\n

Her daughter Jazz remembered her as “very smiley and positive”.<\/p>\n

“Even if the worst thing was happening, she’d still try to see the good,” she said.<\/p>\n

But while the family have fond memories of their mum, they feel anger towards “lots of different parties” that Scatchard was not stopped before he met Kelly.<\/p>\n

They want to know how a man who had been jailed twice – and who police once found with a body bag and a spade in his car – could prey on their mum.<\/p>\n

An inquest into Kelly’s death concluded she was unlawfully killed and Scatchard had been coercive and controlling throughout their relationship.<\/p>\n

Marsh described Scatchard as “devious, cunning and untruthful”. He had not declared his relationship with Kelly to his probation officer as was required.<\/p>\n

Marsh said it was therefore difficult to see what more police and probation officers could have done to prevent Kelly’s death, given they were not aware of her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No-one will ever know how many women Richard Scatchard drugged and raped, but his convictions for attacks on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":683883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-683882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=683882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/683882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/683883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=683882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=683882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=683882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}