Caroline Flack's mother rejects Met Police apology

Caroline Flack's mother Christine has said she does not accept the Met Police's apology over how they handled the TV star's arrest.

Love Island host Flack took her own life in 2020 at the age of 40 after she was arrested and charged with assaulting her boyfriend Lewis Burton, though he did not want the charges to go ahead.

Christine Flack told BBC Newsnight host Victoria Derbyshire she rejected the apology.

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She added: "It just seems wrong. They haven't said why there were no notes taken, why nothing was recorded. I don't know whether they're covering something."

Flack died a month before she was due to face trial on assault charges.

Asked if she believed the TV presenter would still be alive if the police caution had remained but Caroline had not been charged, Christine said: "I do, I really do."

"Once all the pictures came out in the newspapers and things were written about her on social media - they just picked up the bad. There was a lot of good, but Caroline wasn't reading the good - she was only reading the bad."

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She added: "She lost her job straight away, without even being found guilty or going to court. She had another series axed."

Flack was replaced by Laura Whitmore as the host of ITV's Love Island after her arrest and was dropped from planned Channel 4 series The Surjury.

It was revealed in February that Christine had received an apology from the police after an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct into her concerns over how they handled Caroline's arrest.

Christine told Newsnight her biggest regret is not speaking out publicly in the hours after her daughter's arrest to contradict "lies" printed in the media.

She said: "Things that went into the press that she hit someone with a lamp or a fan – that was just totally untrue. And nobody ever came out and said, 'No, that didn't happen.'"

Flack firmly denied being an abuser, and said in an unpublished social media post released by her family that the incident was an argument and accident.

An inquest revealed Flack had had suicidal thoughts prior to her death and had been prescribed medication for insomnia in December 2019, just after being charged.

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Her family have accused the Crown Prosecution Service of pursuing a “show trial” against her because she was in the public eye.

The full interview will air on Newsnight on BBC Two at 10.30pm on Monday 13 March.

For confidential emotional support at times of distress, contact The Samaritans at any time by calling 116 123 or emailing jo@samaritans.org.