Hetti Barkworth-Nanton was left traumatized by her best friend’s tragic passing, but her tireless efforts to raise awareness of domestic abuse resulted in the 2014 Pride of Britain award, which is now being performed on Glasto!
Ordinary mum-turned-domestic violence champion Hetti Barkworth-Nanton is headlining The Information Stage at Glastonbury this weekend to give voice to abused women like her best friend, who was beaten to death by her husband.
Hetti was the last person to speak to her “soulmate” Joanna Simpson an hour before her savage killing, and tells The Mirror: ‘I was talking to her… and then she was just literally ripped away.”
The 47-year-old mum-of-two, who was in the middle of a bitter divorce from her estranged husband, Robert Brown, had planned to stay with Hetti on the weekend she was killed.
When Joanna was brutally murdered and buried in a pre-dug grave by Brown in 2010, who brutally murdered her within earshot of their young children, Hetti’s life was changed.
Afterwards, Hetti and Joanna’s mother Diana Parkes started the Joanna Simpson Foundation, to help children affected by domestic violence, and were recognised for their work at last year’s Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards.
O Cruises and P& are now seeking nominations for tireless campaigners like Hetti and Diana for this year’s Pride of Britain Awards.
Still grieving for her friend, Hetti, 58, from Swindon, says:” Jo was a ray of sunshine – she was kind, warm, fun and, above all, an incredible mother.
We founded the Joanna Simpson Foundation because we couldn’t allow that to happen again after watching the law fail to protect two severely traumatized children. We also wanted to raise awareness of domestic abuse. People don’t realize what is happening to those they love so frequently.
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130, 000 children are in homes where serious injury or death are at risk, according to the charity, and 200 children are bereaved annually by being murdered.
Now Hetti, who also chairs domestic abuse charity Refuge, will be joined on stage at the UK’s biggest festival by TV presenter Zara McDermott and football pundit Eni Aluko, to raise awareness of the soaring rates of violence against women and girls.
Refuge ambassador Zara says: “Since sharing my experiences of intimate image abuse, I have been taken aback by the sheer scale of this horrific form of abuse, with many survivors sharing their own stories with me.
Every day, thousands of women are affected by domestic abuse. No one can afford to turn a blind eye to this devastating societal issue. “
Former footballer Eni, who is also as passionate, has made a statement about the issue of women’s safe spaces in stadiums.
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Hetti continues, “There has been a lot happening over the last 15 years, but winning a Pride of Britain award has to be one of the most overwhelming and positive things.” She continues, “Sincerely proud of winning Pride of Britain’s Special Recognition award last year. It’s amazing. “
She and Diana have successfully fought for the government to review the murder law and sentencing and to change how certain offenders’ license conditions operate as a direct result of their Pride of Britain award.
They claim that the current system traps victims because some prisoners are prohibited from entering their homes within a five-mile radius of their victims and their families.
” Victims feel very anxious about going outside of a five-mile radius, where they would bump into their assailant, but the offender can go everywhere else. It’s crazy, Hetti claims.
Diana, now 86, raised her daughter’s children – now young adults – as her own after her killing.
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They wanted no contact with Brown, who was jailed for 26 years, after pleading guilty to manslaughter with diminished responsibility.
After serving half of Brown’s sentence, Diana from the Isle of Man and Hetti successfully launched a campaign to stop him from being automatically released from prison in October 2023. But he is up for parole again.
According to Hetti, “Robert Brown poses a serious threat to girls and women.” He’s applied for parole again, but he hasn’t yet been given a hearing for that. This will be the fall of this year, in our opinion.
Hetti says she and Jo” became best buddies straight away “when they met at nursery when their children were little.
” We were really soulmates, “she says, reflecting, sadly, on how Jo called off her plans to stay with her on that fateful weekend.
She decided that too much work was required of her. I was literally speaking to her in the hour before… trying to just encourage her to stay positive, because it was their final High Court hearing a week later.
She said, “The divorce hearing is not going to end. He’s going to carry on controlling me.
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” She knew what he was capable of, because he threatened her with a knife three years before. However, we all hoped he would end his relationship with his pregnant girlfriend.
Even now, Hetti misses Jo and struggles with the loss”. She explains, “You know I was talking to her when she abruptly disappeared.”
” Then there was no-one to give Jo her voice at the trial, and he ended up getting manslaughter. “
Due to the shock of Jo’s horrific death, Hetti has experienced serious health issues. I spent four years unable to work with really severe complex PTSD. And then, according to her, she developed breast cancer in 2018, which was unavoidably brought on by the trauma.
She and Diana are concerned about Brown’s release. We’re really worried, terrified, “says Hetti”. Due to the pre-nuptial agreement he signed, this man spent his marriage resenting Jo. And that resentment turned to utter distaste and then insidious hatred.
He was forced to carry out his actions three years after their separation. But having spent three months digging a grave, he holds vengeance like no other.
He will be furious that he has been imprisoned for more time than he anticipated. And he blames myself and Di for that.
We only hope that he stays in prison for a while before getting physically older.
Both women were appointed CBEs in the New Year Honours List 2024 in recognition of their work, and Queen Camilla says they are her inspiration for raising awareness around domestic violence.
Diana vows to fight until her final days to protect children and stop domestic abuse.
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major innovations
After Hetti and Diana collected their award at last year’s glittering Pride of Britain ceremony, the pair went to Number 10 the following day to meet PM Keir Starmer.
Hetti recalls: “We then met Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and the Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood, where we put forward a number of issues we’re concerned about, regarding the law and the treatment of victims.
” Two things have happened notably since then. First, the High Commissioner of Justice announced a thorough investigation into the murder law and sentencing by the Law Commission, and we have in fact attributed that decision to our campaigning.
“The second issue we discussed, which is very much the brainchild of Diana and something that she feels very strongly about, is the licence conditions that are in place to stop offenders from going near the victim.
When someone is allowed to operate a vehicle without a license, it effectively traps the victim within that five-mile radius. They feel very anxious about going outside that five-mile radius limit, where they would bump into the offender, but the offender can go everywhere else.
We worked really hard to change that, particularly for dangerous offenders, so that victims are given loose driving conditions that allow them to travel.
Hetti adds: “Shabana Manood announced in the House that she is now going to explicitly look at changing the way licence conditions work for certain offenders, doing exactly what we’ve asked her to do”.
Background
Believing he’d been “stitched up” by a pre-nup, Robert Brown bludgeoned his estranged wife Joanna Simpson to death with a claw hammer – within earshot of their then nine and 10-year-old children – in Ascot, Berkshire, in October 2010.
The former BA pilot confessed to police the following day by placing her body in a pre-dug grave in Windsor Great Park.
The couple had been living apart for three years.
Brown, then 47, claimed their bitter divorce proceedings had put him under great stress.
Brown was initially given a manslaughter sentence of 26 years after being found not guilty of murder.
After a public outcry at the leniency of the sentence and outraged that. Hetti and Diana met with the then-government and were told that he could be automatically released after half of his sentence had already been served.
The government also sent Brown’s case to the Parole Board in October 2023, which led to his arrest the following month.
Government lawyers said Brown had “persistently refused to engage in the rehabilitative elements of his sentence”.
The court dismissed the appeal in a landmark decision, finding that Brown posed a “high risk to the public of serious harm.”
Now Brown has once again applied for a parole hearing, which is due to be held in autumn.
Do you know of any campaigns that, in collaboration with P& and O Cruises, deserve to receive the Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Special Recognition Award?
How to nominate:
Campaigns that change the world are at the heart of Pride of Britain, and over the past 26 years, some truly dedicated work by community-minded people have inspired the nation.
If you know a campaign that deserves an award, like Hetti and Diana, you can nominate them for:
SPECIAL RECOGNITION For achievements not covered in other categories, such as inspiring carers, campaigners and members of armed forces.
Source: Mirror
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