Family of Prescot woman who died 'escaping' ex secure new inquest

The family of a woman who fell to her death in a suspected attempt to escape her abusive ex-boyfriend has won a legal battle for a fresh inquest to examine potential "police failings". Alan McMahon was the only other person in the fourth-storey flat when Linda O'Brien, 49, climbed out of the window and fell in the early hours of 9 May 2020. Merseyside Police had been called to the home in Prescot a month earlier and found the pair together - but missed the fact McMahon was in breach of a restraining order and did not arrest him. In 2023 a coroner had ruled out any "causative" link between the two incidents - a decision described as "irrational" and "flawed" by the Court of Appeal this week. O'Brien's family had applied for a judicial review after the 2023 decision, and after that was rejected by the High Court they went to the Court of Appeal. A panel of three judges said if 38-year-old McMahon had been arrested on 7 April 2020 it was "not merely probable, but highly likely" that he would have been in prison on the day O'Brien died a month later. They quashed the original inquest conclusion of "accidental death" and a new hearing will take place before a different coroner. In a sta