Documentary on Kirsty Maxwell case to raise questions over fatal fall

The parents of Kirsty Maxwell say they can’t yet grieve, until they get answers about her fatal fall from a balcony in Benidorm 14 months ago.

Denise and Brian Curry were speaking ahead of a BBC documentary Killed Abroad, in which an expert suggests she clambered over the 10th-storey balcony, rather than leaping off it.

Denise, 54, from Livingston, said: “We have not grieved. Not at all. It’s the only thing we think about, 24/7. I just don’t want to go out any more. I don’t want to enjoy myself.

“It’s almost like guilt. It feels wrong. Our whole lives have been turned upside down. All we think about is Kirsty and getting justice. We need to know what happened.”

Brian, 59, said: “The only way we get through the day is by changing hats, that’s what we call it.

“When we get up in the morning, we put on our work hat and when we come home, the first thing Denise asks me is if we’ve got any emails.

“You have got to compartmentalise yourself during the day. That’s the only way to get through. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t cope at all, but it is very difficult.”

The couple say their lives have been turned upside down since the death of their 27-year-old daughter, who they say was “full of life, and laughter”.

They say their every waking moment is consumed by the need to win justice for her.

Brian said: “She was just always laughing and smiling. She loved her friends, and was the person you could talk to about anything.

“She would always be more concerned about other people than herself, she’d always ask how you were.”

Kirsty had married husband Adam in a fairytale wedding in Cyprus just six months before she fell to her death from an apartment block on April 29, 2017, while on a hen do in Benidorm with friends.

Her parents, along with Kirsty’s younger brother Ryan and her husband Adam, have been fighting for answers as to what happened on the night the Livingston woman died.

They have been joined by a former Strathclyde police detective, David Swindle, who is reviewing the case in search of new information.

His investigation is the focus of a documentary to be aired on BBC Scotland on Wednesday (18 July), which centres around Kirsty’s death and the death of another Scot abroad, Craig Mallon, who was killed by a single punch while on a stag party in Lloret de Mar.

The detective has obtained police images from inside the apartment where Kirsty fell, along with statements given by five Nottingham men who were staying there.

The reasons why Kirsty, who was staying two floors below them, ended up in the room are still unknown, and the men have so far remained silent about what they know.

One of the group - Joseph Graham - was arrested on suspicion of homicide but was released after two days, while his friends were recalled to court three months later but refused to answer questions.

Footage of the private hearing, shows the men - Callum Northridge, Anthony Holehouse, Daniel Bailey and Ricky Gammon - step up to a microphone before stating: “I will only answer questions from my lawyer.

Spanish police have ruled the tragedy as an accident, however parents Brian and Denise say their investigation has been “a shambles”.

Brian said: “It’s utterly disgraceful. There is a systemic failure within the Spanish judicial system from the top to the bottom.

“First of all they were trying to blame Kirsty and even asked us if she was a racist, because one of the men in the apartment was black.

“Then they said maybe she was frightened of big men’.

“Every time we ask for evidence, everything went missing, was destroyed, or rejected. They destroyed Kirsty’s clothes, saying it was unhygienic to keep them because they were covered in blood.

“The Foreign Office could have done a lot more as well. If we were celebrities, or more high profile, they might have helped to fund an investigation or at least done something. Because we’re just ordinary working people, we’ve had nothing.”

The family were able to obtain a seven-minute CCTV clip of Kirsty returning to her room on the night she died, but officers and the owners of the apartment complex claimed the rest of the footage had been destroyed.

Another tragic video taken by a friend who was sharing a room with Kirsty shows the 27-year-old asleep, snoring deeply, just 50 minutes before she fell to her death.

Denise said: “We just want answers. We want justice. We promised her we would never stop fighting, and we won’t.”

Killed Abroad is on BBC One Scotland on Wednesday at 9pm.

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