The desperately lonely life of tragic suicide dentist ‘torn apart by family rifts and fighting’
Siblings of Helen Nicoll says the 'psychotic' portrayal of their sister in the inquest of death does not match the woman they knew
THE siblings of a dentist branded “psychotic” and “possessed” by her husband at her inquest this week have spoken up to defend her.
Husband Stephen who found Helen Nicoll hanged at their £1.5million home - also called her “abusive” and “violent”.
But her sisters and brother said: “Helen’s portrayal throughout this inquest is not the Helen we as a family knew.
“There have been too many unanswered questions.”
Nicoll, 53, originally from Liverpool, believed her husband was having an affair and that her son and two daughters had been brainwashed against her.
Her children — all believed to be privately educated — called her “council house” and “Liverpool scum” to her face while her husband did nothing to defend her, the inquest heard.
It led her siblings to describe her death as “a cry for help”.
But, they added, it “was a cry for help that would never be heard in the family household in which she lived”.
Mr Nicoll, 54, was arrested on suspicion of her murder but was released without charge.
Barrister Gail Farrington, for Mrs Nicoll’s family, said at the inquest in Huntingdon, Cambs: “Following Christmas 2014 she said she had an awful New Year 2015 celebration and she suspected you [Mr Nicoll] were having an affair. She told her sister she was thinking of relocating to Windsor.”
The couple worked together at their Hurst Park Dental Practice in Cambridge.
But life behind the doors of their smart home in Great Wilbraham, Cambs, appeared deeply dysfunctional.
The barrister added: “Helen decided not to end the marriage because your youngest son was still in education and you had the practice together.”
Relations with her middle child, Victoria, a talented cellist, had apparently broken down following a row over a concert her mother wanted her to play.
Mr Nicoll claimed his wife would not cook for or even talk to Victoria after she refused to take part in the show.
He admitted there were times when he did not like his wife as a person but denied accusations that he had cheated on her or brainwashed their children.
The rifts within the family came as Mrs Nicoll battled depression.
She had quit dentistry following a complaint from a patient in February last year.
Mr Nicoll conceded he had “no discussions” with her family about the problems and stated: “We had no plan for how to deal with Helen.”
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He also denied that his wife of 27 years planned to leave him.
He said: “Helen had no thoughts of ending our marriage.
“I would dispute our marriage was unhappy. I would say it wasn’t a marriage of total bliss but I wouldn’t say it wasn’t happy.”
He said the conversations Mrs Nicoll had with her sister were because she “wanted sympathy”.
Several years earlier, police were called after the couple’s eldest daughter, Georgia, 22, claimed she had been physically assaulted by her mother.
Mr Nicoll told the inquest: “My wife punched my children in the face. She gave them black eyes.
“She physically and emotionally abused them.”
Charges were never brought and Georgia and Mrs Nicoll were said to have been “very close” at the time of her death.
The allegations came as a shock to Mrs Nicoll’s friends, who described her as a “lovely woman” and a “wonderful mother”.
On the night of her death in June last year, Mr Nicoll had met Georgia at a service station and discussed concerns about her mother. He said he then took a long route home and had several missed calls from his wife.
He told the inquest that when he got home, he found that Mrs Nicoll had drunk “all but an inch” of a bottle of wine.
He claims she was “quite drunk” and yelled at him for “talking about me to Georgia”.
During their row, Mr Nicoll says she threw his golf clubs outside and took his car keys in an effort to stop him playing golf the next day.
He said: “I did restrain her. I held her wrists to stop her hitting me.
“She told me I was trying to brainwash my daughter.”
She was also alleged to have set upon him over an email she had found in which he offered to take a female colleague for a drink.
He said she slapped him and repeatedly swung at him, telling the hearing he eventually went and curled up on a bed as she continued to hit him.
He said: “She was saying, ‘Give me your phone’ and I was saying, ‘No’. So she started slapping me. She was thumping me. I curled up in a ball on the bed and she started kicking me.
“She was smacking me on the back of the head. I held her wrists to protect myself, thinking, ‘If we could just calm down’. This was all to try and get my phone.”
The inquest heard she then smashed her own head three times against a bedside table, laughing as she did so.
Mr Nicoll said she took pictures of her self-inflicted injuries and sent them to Georgia, writing: “Look what your father did to me.”
Mr Nicoll said: “Because there’s been a history of violence towards the children, with police involvement, she was very aware of covering her tracks.”
The row went on for two hours. Then, in the early hours of the morning, Mrs Nicoll turned a violin concerto on the radio.
He did not investigate, but told the inquest: “My belief now is that she turned the radio on because she had decided that she was going to do something horrendous.”
He found her dead at 6am the following morning but did not call emergency services for 25 minutes.
Instead he called his friend to cancel a game of golf, then called the couple’s children.
At the inquest he was accused of believing “golf was more important than the fact your wife had taken her own life”.
Mr Nicoll said: “I didn’t call the ambulance service because she was dead.
“I didn’t try to resuscitate her because it felt disrespectful. I didn’t know what to do.
“My first thought was to wait and call the GP surgery when it opened.”
His reaction on finding the body led to his arrest.
But police later told the hearing they believed Mr Nicoll was himself a victim of domestic violence.
The case ended in a narrative verdict, with Cambridgeshire assistant coroner Simon Milburn concluding: “Helen died as the result of a self-inflicted act but the evidence of why remains unclear.”
The saga has shocked friends, family and patients of the couple, who first met at The Royal Dental Hospital in London in 1984.
One friend said: “They are very successful, professional people. There’s never been any trouble between them in the past. They were very together.
“No one can believe Steve would do anything to harm her. Helen was a lovely person.”