It seemed to be a case of the abused not recognizing he's in an abusive relationship. The fight was so bad the neighbours called it in; she had thrown a lamp at him while he was sleeping, causing serious injury. The neighbours had said it was not the first time they had heard her verbally abusing him, and friends of his stepped up on twitter and said she was abusive, but he still refused to press charges. The trial went ahead because of all the evidence, with him acting as a 'witness' rather than the victim.

In the interim, 2 ex-boyfriends of hers went on Twitter and talked about how abusive she was during their relationships. One posted a PR contract she forced him to sign, which was bananas. She basically had all rights to any photos and evidence of their relationship, he could never speak of it (even after breaking up), anything bad that came up in the news would be considered a leak from him, etc. Very, very controlling.

The trial was not going to go in her favour. It's still a tragedy, though, that she felt suicide was her only option.