Fallen Women

Stacey Dooley looks into the deaths of women who have fallen from height, in cases where domestic abuse may have been part of the wider picture, and asks what role, if any, abuse can play in how these women die.

As Stacey meets bereaved families, survivors, detectives, lawyers and campaigners, she explores how coercive control can shape women’s lives long before a fatal incident, and whether those histories are given sufficient weight when deaths are investigated.

Among the cases, we see Stacey meet the family of Bianca Thomas, a young mother from Birmingham who died after falling from an 11th-floor balcony. Bianca's death was ruled accidental, but her family still have questions about the circumstances surrounding her death.

Stacey also hears about the landmark case of Kimberley Milne, whose husband was convicted in Scotland of culpable homicide after sustained domestic abuse was found to have been a significant contributing factor in her death by suicide, and asks what that could mean for similar cases in England and Wales.

Powerful and deeply personal, the programme explores grief, justice and the difficult questions surrounding women who die after falling from height.