Alice Ruggles

**Alice Catherine Ruggles** (December 24, 1991 - October 12, 2016)

## Background

Alice was the third of the four Ruggles children, and grew up with her sister and brothers in the quiet Leicestershire village of Tur Langton. The family was a close-knit one and Alice always managed to make her presence known, whether by her jokes, her mischievous pranks, or later by the endless banter on the family WhatsApp group. She was a natural entertainer, who could be found not only singing in school concerts but also leading the karaoke at friends’ parties when she was as young as nine.

Having discovered fencing at a PGL camp at age eleven, the sport soon became an important part of Alice’s life. Her chosen weapon was the epee, and she represented her home county of Leicestershire and the East-Midlands region on many occasions; she also enjoyed success on the national fencing circuit. By the time she was eighteen, Alice was selecting potential universities based on the strengths of their fencing clubs, and she duly chose Northumbria, where she became club captain. The proudest of her achievements was winning the Women’s Epee at the Leeds Open in 2012.

## Events

### Backstory

Trimaan Dhillon was a soldier serving with 2 Scots based at Penicuik, south of Edinburgh. Alice had been introduced to him on-line by a mutual friend while he was serving in a non-combat role in Afghanistan, and they met in January 2016, spending a happy week together in Newcastle and another in Edinburgh before he returned to Afghanistan for his final two-month tour of duty.

Friends and family recount the relationship as being very on-and-off. There were days when they were happy and so in love but also days where he was very demanding of her time and got very angry when she could not facilitate him.

During this time Dhillon had started being critical of her appearance and of the way she lived life, and of her friends and of family members, so that she steadily became more isolated. The cumulative effect of Dhillon’s behaviour on Alice was very marked indeed. In a few months, from the happy, outgoing, vibrant person she had been, she had become miserable and lonely. Her work was adversely affected.

Around this time, Alice was contacted by another woman whom Dhillon had befriended on a dating website. At this, Alice ended the relationship, no longer being able to trust him. In fact, all the while Dhillon had been demanding her total loyalty to him, he had been cheating on her, contacting other women and engaging in casual sex with them.

### Stalking

Dhillon was not prepared to accept no for an answer. In the ensuing weeks after the breakup, he bombarded Alice with phone calls, voice messages, texts and emails. Some were pleading; others were aggressive and threatening. He also contacted her family and friends. In one message he stated he was not used to being denied what belonged to him.

During August and September, Alice received a torrent of messages from Dhillon — texts, emails, and voicemails from several different phones. In some he professed his undying love; in others he used emotional blackmail, crying down the phone or threatening to kill himself. In yet others he was more menacing, using veiled threats to release compromising photographs that he had secretly taken of her.

Dhillon had become obsessed with Alice. At first she tried her best to be pleasant to him, as it was not in her nature to be horrid, but he simply abused that in his attempts to get her back. When she began to ignore his messages, he contacted some of her family members and friends, trying to get them to influence her. He had also hacked into her social media, and it became clear that he was reading all her messages so that he knew who she was speaking to and where she was.

On 30 September, Dhillon repeatedly rang Alice’s doorbell and then hid when she looked through the spyhole to see who was there. She was concerned that it was him and did not answer the door. Some hours later he climbed the fence into the back garden and knocked on Alice’s ground-floor window as she lay in bed. When she opened the curtains she saw flowers and chocolates on the windowsill and Dhillon backing off.

As he drove back to Edinburgh he left a chilling phone message, where he kept repeating that he didn’t want to kill her and wouldn’t kill her. Alice at last contacted the police, who were initially very sympathetic and reassured her that he could be stopped. They crimed the incident as harassment and issued a Police Information Notice (PIN).

Seven days later, Alice received a parcel from Dhillon containing a letter and some other items. The letter complained that she had “called the police on him” and that he was now facing the repercussions, including that they had taken away his laptop, iPad and phone (which was a lie). He went on: “I’m in a lot of shit now but hope you feel happy now … I’m sending you everything I have that reminds me of you as you belong to another man. Wishing you two a happy life. I will never come in your life again.”

She contacted the police again to report that he was still contacting her, but the response was less sympathetic and no action was taken.

All of a sudden, Alice realised that she was not being protected at all. She tried to make sure she was driven home to the front door each day by a colleague and immediately double-locked it. On 10 October, unbeknown to Alice, Dhillon drove down to her house after dark, climbed into the back garden and photographed the rear window. Prosecutors felt he was making a reconnaissance of how he could gain entry into the property.

### Murder

On 12 October, Dhillon drove down again from Edinburgh and parked near to Alice’s flat, waiting for her to return home. While waiting he was messaging another woman, trying to arrange a meeting later that evening back up in Scotland.

Around 6pm, Dhillon climbed in again over the back wall and this time forced his way in through a window. He picked up a sharp kitchen knife and cornered Alice in the bathroom. The bathroom door had foot marks on it, suggesting Alice had managed to lock herself in the bathroom and Dhillon had kicked the door down.

Her flatmate Maxine returned shortly afterwards and found her. Alice's body was found with 6 separate cuts to the throat.

### Aftermath

Maxine told the police everything she knew about Dhillon and Dhillon was arrested back at his barracks just a few hours later, as he was attempting to climb out over the wall.

Dhillon initially denied all knowledge of Alice’s death but overwhelming evidence quickly placed him at the scene. In court Dhillon was not only unemotional, but also exhibited breathtaking arrogance. He denied murder and tried to argue that Alice had attacked him, but the jury rejected this.

Trimaan Dhillon was sentenced to life imprisonment for Alice’s murder, with a minimum tariff of 22 years.

## News

*For news articles on Alice Ruggles, see here.*

## External links

* The Alice Ruggles Trust • The Alice Ruggles Trust
* Alice Ruggles • Find a Grave

## In popular media

### Podcasts

* Killer Queens: A True Crime Podcast: ALICE RUGGLES (26 June 2018)
* Morbidology: 32: Alice Ruggles (27 January 2020)

### Television

* Judge Rinder's Crime Stories - *Alice Ruggles* (17 January 2019)
* Murdered by... - *My Stalker: The Killing of Alice Ruggles* (10 July 2018)
* My Lover, My Killer - *Series 2, Episode 1* (10 February 2023)
* Sleeping with a Killer - *Alice Ruggles* (29 August 2022)
* Social Media Murders - *The Murder of Alice Ruggles* (9 March 2023)