'Can you tell me that they didn’t suffer? Please.'

An inquest investigates a Bolton mother’s murder-suicide

Dear members — today’s story is a harrowing read, a story brought to you from Bolton Coroner’s Court by Jack Dulhanty. You might remember we published a piece from Minshull Street Crown Court last year, and this year we’ve resolved to do more of this kind of journalism — court reporting, but delivered in a way that helps you to see some of the deeper currents in a case; the nuances and the human details that you hear when you’re sitting in a courtroom but which sometimes get stripped out in normal news coverage.

Jack, who wrote today’s story, has just joined The Mill on staff, after doing freelance shifts with us for a few months at the end of last year while we waited until we had enough subscription income to hire him. He grew up in Swinton, graduated from MMU last year and came to us originally via one of our first readers and members, Peter Murray, who taught Jack feature writing on his journalism course. So it’s all a lovely and very organic local Millers talent funnel we have ru…