Murder of Ellie Gould

Ellie Gould, born 6 February 2002, was a Year Twelve sixth form student at Hardenhuish School in Chippenham, living in Calne, Wiltshire. She was a keen horse rider and cross-country competitor with ambitions to join the mounted police and study psychology at university. In January 2019 she began a relationship with fellow A Level student Thomas Griffiths, whom she had known since Year Seven. As her exams approached, Gould decided the relationship was affecting her studies and ended it in early May 2019, telling friends that Griffiths had not taken the split well.

On 3 May 2019, Griffiths feigned illness to leave school, returned home, hid from his mother, then took her car and drove to Gould's house. Following an argument, he attempted to strangle her before stabbing her in the neck 13 times with a kitchen knife. He spent roughly an hour attempting to clean the crime scene, disposing of bloodied items in nearby woodland, and staged the scene to suggest the injuries were self-inflicted by placing the knife in Gould's hand. He also used her phone, unlocked with her finger, to send a message in her name cancelling a lift arrangement. Gould's body was found by her father at around 3pm that day.

Wiltshire Police arrested Griffiths later that evening. Evidence including mobile phone data, CCTV, a witness sighting, defence-wound marks on his neck, and a match between blood on his trainers and Gould's blood led to him being charged with murder on 6 May 2019. He initially denied involvement but pleaded guilty at a hearing on 29 August 2019 at Bristol Crown Court. At sentencing on 8 November 2019, the court heard that Griffiths had attempted to disguise the injuries as self-inflicted, and a letter from Griffiths expressing remorse was read out. The judge described the killing as a "frenzied knife attack" but ruled it was not premeditated, as Griffiths had not brought the weapon with him. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of twelve-and-a-half years before parole eligibility; because he was under 21, a whole life order could not be imposed.

The case prompted a campaign by Gould's friends for compulsory self-defence lessons in schools, debated in the House of Commons in March 2020, resulting in a government commitment to issue guidance rather than a mandatory requirement. Gould's mother, Carole Gould, campaigned for "Ellie's Law" to allow young offenders to be sentenced more like adults for serious crimes, contributing to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill introduced in March 2021, though it does not apply retrospectively to Griffiths's sentence. An independent review published in November 2021 found no agency failings but identified that Griffiths had engaged in "educational sabotage," a form of coercive control. Carole Gould later co-founded the support group Killed Women and was appointed an OBE in the 2025 New Year Honours for this work.