The family of Semina Halliwell, a 12‐year‐old schoolgirl from Southport, is reeling after her death, three days following an overdose of prescription tablets. Semina, a Year Seven pupil at Stanley High School, tragically passed away at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool on June 12, 2021. An inquest into her death concluded recently, leaving her grieving mother, Rachel Halliwell, feeling that the findings were “enormously dissatisfying.”
During the inquest, evidence revealed that Semina had suffered months of bullying and harassment, compounded by alleged sexual abuse by a fellow pupil in January 2021. The distressing revelations emerged in the days leading up to her death. On the night of June 8—just one day before she was scheduled to give a video interview about the alleged rape—Merseyside Police were called to the family home once again, according to the Manchester Evening News.
At approximately 12am on June 9, Semina went upstairs, saying she had “had enough.” In a series of heartbreaking recordings, she filmed herself crying and miming to songs on her phone, followed by a video that showed what appeared to be empty pill packets on her bed.
The inquest, held at Bootle Town Hall on February 12, saw coroner Johanna Thompson decline to invoke Article 2, which concerns the right to life in cases of state care failures. The coroner noted that, despite perceptions that police behavior was “unprofessional and uncaring,” the meeting conducted on March 28, 2021, with Semina had been “not conducted with any impropriety on behalf of the officers.” Detective Sergeant Christopher Loughead had informed the court that he had outlined potential “pitfalls” in the investigation, emphasizing that “ultimately there were no witnesses to the events on those days.”
Rachel Halliwell also testified about the police’s handling of the situation, recalling that officers had told her daughter, “it’s going to take 18 months to two years to go to court, and do you really want it hanging over your head?” and “it’s your word against his.” These remarks have only deepened her sense of betrayal. “I’m feeling a deep range of emotions and enormous dissatisfaction that the failures by the agencies involved in Semina’s care have not been acknowledged. What I wanted to hear was a finding of the failures that I see in all the agencies’ interactions with Semina and recommendations and improvements being made so that further tragedies cannot be allowed to happen in the future. My pain continues as I believe Semina was betrayed by those responsible to help protect her, and I hoped for some acknowledgment of this for me and my family, and because personally, I will never stop believing that this was the case,” she declared outside Bootle Town Hall.
Merseyside Police, in a statement on their website, reiterated that the evidence did not reveal any indication that a “real and immediate risk” to Semina’s life was known by any state agencies that might have prevented her overdose. They expressed their condolences, adding, “No parent should have to suffer the loss of a child.”
