Did Caroline Flack Hit Her Boyfriend Lewis Burton With a Lamp?
In Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth, the friends and family of the late Love Island U.K. host Caroline Flack—who died by suicide in 2020 after she was accused of assaulting her boyfriend Lewis Burton—explore what really happened at her London apartment on the night of Dec. 12, 2019.
Though prosecutors alleged in court that Caroline had smashed a lamp over Lewis’ head during an argument, resulting in what they described as a bloody “scene from a horror movie,” a police report obtained by her mom Christine Flack said otherwise.
“It is unclear what object was actually used to assault Mr. Burton,” Christine read from the report in the documentary. “He initially stated to officers that he assumed that it was a desk fan or a lamp. Mr. Burton stated, ‘I don’t know what it was.’”
The police report obtained by Christine also said that Caroline’s phone was “seized as it has a significant amount of blood on it and a crack on one of the corners, suggesting this may have been the weapon.”
Before her death, Caroline maintained that she had struck Lewis while a phone was in her hand. for his part, Lewis had also denied being hit with a lamp.
Caroline Flack Harmed Herself on Night of the Incident With Lewis Burton, Say Family and Friends
As for the blood found in Caroline’s apartment, her family and friends said it belonged to the Strictly Come Dancing alum after she attempted suicide in front of Lewis.
“She thought, ‘I’m done. My career is over, my boyfriend is gone, I might as well be dead,’” friend Mollie Grosberg recounted on what Caroline told her following the incident. “She said to me, ‘I found some broken glass and I sliced as deep as I could into my wrist. I wanted to die. I just wanted it to be over.’”
According to Chrstine, Caroline’s injuries were so severe that doctors told her that she would need plastic surgery to repair.
Prosecutors Allegedly Didn’t Want to Press Charges at First
Christine said the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) initially wanted to let Caroline off with a legal warning since she had no history of domestic violence and Lewis didn’t want to press charges, but an unnamed detective with London’s Metropolitan Police Service made an appeal.
After an investigation from watchdog group Independent Office for Police Conduct, Christine alleged that the detective “applied the wrong criteria” when deciding if Caroline’s case warranted prosecution and “didn’t keep proper notes as to why she decided to challenge the CPS.”
“Because of a police error, my daughter’s died,” Christine said. “I just want them to admit that pushing the CPS to charge Caroline was wrong.”
In a statement to documentarians, a rep for the Met said, “It is understandable that those closest to Caroline have questions about everything that happened to her in the months before she died, including the police investigation. We have been open to those questions and have engaged with a number of independent reviews and an inquest. While there was organizational learning for us on points of process, no misconduct has been identified.”
Was Caroline Flack Arrested Because She Was a Celebrity?
Those in Caroline’s inner circle believe the star was unfairly prosecuted because authorities wanted to look tough on the issue of domestic violence.
“It rapidly became apparent to me was that Caroline Flack was being prosecuted not for what happened or what she had done or not done,” her attorney Paul Morris said, “but she was being prosecuted because she was Caroline Flack.”
Christine agreed, saying in the documentary, “The actual crime that Carrie was charged with in the end was the most minor charge you can get. But what she was going through, it was just so over the top for what actually happened that night. The punishment was so disproportionate given the risks to her health.”
A spokesperson for the CPS denied the allegations that her being a public figure played a role. The agency told producers that “all decisions in this case were made on the basis of the medical opinion available to us at the time. A person’s celebrity status never influences whether a case is taken forward. We are satisfied that the prosecution was correctly brought.”
Caroline Flack Had a History of Self-Harm and Mental Health Struggles Before Her Suicide
As a young girl, Caroline “went through a bit of a spate of cutting her arms,” according to Christine.
“She did take pills and ended up in hospital,” the matriarch shared. “It was very, very serious. One doctor said she had bipolar. At the time, they used to call it manic depression. She didn’t want to be told that. She didn’t want a label. She hated having this mental health problem and it was always hushed up.”
Caroline’s friends also said the former X Factor host tried to harm herself on the night before a December 2019 hearing over the pending assault case. As Mollie recalled, “She drank the mini bar dry. She took whatever tablets were there in the hotel room that had been prescribed to her.”
Bloody Photo of Caroline Flack’s Apartment Leaked
On January 1, 2020, The Sun published a photo taken from her apartment on the night of the incident with Lewis. (At the time, Lewis denied that it was his blood in the photos, writing on his Instagram Story, “This blood isn’t mine and I didn’t get hit over the head with a lamp.”)
In the documentary, Caroline’s friends and family maintained the blood depicted in the graphic image was from the TV host’s self-inflicted wounds, with her agent Louise Booth saying that Caroline “reacted terribly” to the leak of the photo “because of the embarrassment.”
However, the newspaper defended the decision to run the picture. “Caroline Flack was a well-known television personality," a spokesperson for The Sun told producers in a statement, “and while it is now clear that the decision to charge her with an offence was not in the public interest, the reporting of that decision was and attracted significant media coverage.”
The rep continued, “The story was subject to robust pre-publication editorial legal process, and repeated remarks from the court hearing, including a quote from Mr. Burton that Ms. Flack did not hit him with a lamp.”
Caroline Flack’s Mom Recounts Her Final Days
One day before Caroline was found dead by suicide, The Sun published a story about the sale of a Valentine’s Day card poking fun at the allegation that she had assault Lewis with a lamp. And Christine recalled Caroline’s reaction to seeing the story.
“She had already been through so much,” Christine said. “The lie about the lamp that had been brought up by the prosecutor in court had been turned into a joke that The Sun had chose to reprint, sharing it to even a wider audience. It’s not journalism. It’s bullying, and it was like another nail in her coffin.”
According to a rep for the tabloid, the article was published “only to highlight what The Sun called a ‘cruel’ and ‘brutal’ Valentine’s Day card that had gone on sale to mock Caroline before her scheduled trial.”
The spokesperson added that the story was “deleted after Caroline’s death to avoid causing further distress.”
Caroline Flack Left a Note Before Her Suicide
Caroline died by suicide on Feb. 15, 2020. She left a note that read, “Please let this court case be dropped, and myself and Lewis find harmony.”
Reflecting on her daughter’s tragic passing, Christine said, “She was just in a place where she saw no way out, and that must be awful.”