Roderick Henderson Remembered
Eve Henderson writes:
Today is the anniversary of my husband being attacked and killed on the Champs Elysees in Paris. His death was largely ignored by the French authorities. The British Embassy told me that the French police were not obliged to speak to them and give them any details and without speaking French I couldn't get much information from the police either. I was in shock and traumatised. I was made to feel a nuisance.
My children and I were horrified when the hospital turned off Roderick's life support machine without needing to ask my permission - it was a state decision.
I hoped that on my return from France a few days later, someone would ring me or speak to me to give me some advice on what I could do. The reality was no one came to give me any information or guidance. I rang the police but was told it was not their jurisdiction. I rang the Foreign Office and was told that they could not interfere in a foreign judicial process. It was as if my husband had not existed. I was, and I'm still not, considered to be a bereaved victim covered by the UK's Victims Code because the crime occurred abroad. Our Victims' Commissioner Dr Baroness Helen Newlove LLD (hc) DCL has written about the lack of support for bereaved British citizens in her Annual Report https://shorturl.at/EB6io
At that time there was no charity that dealt solely with homicides abroad but together with another family I co-founded Murdered Abroad. There is still no public funding, no government funding, and we have to rely on donations from other families bereaved by a homicide abroad.