Widow whose husband was killed in Paris in 1997 campaigns for victims abroad

Eve Henderson says her husband, Roderick, was fatally attacked on a Paris street in October 1997 while the couple were in the city celebrating his 54th birthday. Roderick was taken to a neurological ward and later died after life support was removed, Henderson says. Henderson says the three men had been at a bar on the Champs-Élysées when a gang of youths on inline skates attacked them.

Scott and Andrew were kicked at the knees and discharged; Roderick was punched in the throat — the autopsy confirmed a broken larynx — and kicked in the head as he fell, suffering a bleed on the brain, the article says. A crowd gathered and all three were taken to hospital. Henderson describes being stranded and unsupported in a foreign city: she says the British consulate offered no practical help, a first police officer treated it as a civil matter, and it was months before police appealed for witnesses or brought in the murder squad.

Her boss paid a French law firm and for Roderick’s repatriation; the consulate collected his jewellery but the Foreign Office refused to return it until probate was granted. To this day no one has been charged, the article says. Henderson helped set up Samm Abroad in 2001, which became the charity Murdered Abroad (MA), to provide peer support and practical guidance on repatriation, legal representation and inquests.

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