British motorcycling champion Sean Emmett saw his new bride “flip out” of their Dubai hotel window while looking for her lost wedding ring, his brother told an inquest into her death on Tuesday.
Jason Emmett, who was best man at the couple's wedding days before the incident in 2013, told the Surrey coroner's court that Sean rang his mobile hours after Abbie Elson, 27, fell to her death from their fourth floor honeymoon suite at Jumeirah Creekside Hotel in Dubai.
"Sean said Abbie had fallen out of a window," his brother said. "He said she had lost her ring and had gone down to look for it and got all emotional about it."
After she failed to find it, Sean went to look for the white gold ring but as he reached the door of their hotel room, he “saw her flip out”, his brother told the hearing.
Jason, a policeman for London’s Metropolitan force, said: “He sounded shaken up and said the whole thing was awful.
“He had got a lot of blood on him from giving her CPR.”
Abbie said she was living with an abusive partner and this triggered a few things
Joseph Semanda, a security guard at the hotel, said he saw a woman falling from a window and found her gasping for breath in the bushes below.
In a written statement, he said he saw Sean looking out of the window after she fell. He described Sean running to where she lay dying in a bid to resuscitate her.
Jason said he worried his brother would become suicidal while under investigation in Dubai on suspicion of her murder.
The 50-year-old former Grand Prix motorcyclist was held on bail for 10 months after her death in February 2013 and released without charge. On arrival to the UK in December 2013, he was arrested by Surrey police but was cleared after a three-year investigation.
The inquest aims to establish whether anyone else was involved in Abbie’s death.
Jason said Sean and Abbie lived a “very chaotic lifestyle” marked by excessive drinking.
“Sean led a sportsman’s lifestyle,” he said. “I would describe him as a good-time person. He liked to party.
“He was nonconformist and lived a disorganised lifestyle.”
Jason described his brother as a “heavy drinker” and said Sean and Abbie were “like two peas in a pod”.
Jason told the inquest he would avoid his brother when he had been drinking because of his “annoying” behaviour while under the influence of alcohol.
Despite living in the flat below the couple, he denied seeing any signs of Sean being violent towards Abbie, although he admitted police had to be called during one of their rows in November 2011.
“I was not really aware of problems in their relationship but I was aware of a bit of an issue about three times,” he told the hearing. “Normally, it involved drinking and one of them getting locked out.”
Jason said he became so concerned about their drinking that he told Abbie: “If you drink like that, you are not going to live until you’re 40.”
Paul Chitty, a friend of the motorcyclist who lived opposite Sean, said he could sometimes hear their screaming matches.
The inquest was told Abbie had suffered bouts of depression and self-harm and had a long history of mental health issues and battles with the eating disorder bulimia. She had attempted suicide twice before meeting Sean.
She had inflicted cuts on her arms and legs sporadically from the age of 10 and sought medical help in 2011, shortly after meeting Sean. The stress of dealing with an abusive partner was making her self-harm again and even caused her to step out in front of a moving car, doctors said.
Psychiatrist Raghad Hussain said in a written statement: “Abbie said she was living with an abusive partner and this triggered a few things. She said she was getting the urge to self-harm and described her relationship as 'lovely most of the time but occasionally her partner would become abusive'”.
Within three months of that report, Abbie was drinking 200 units a week, more than 14 times the amount recommended by UK health officials.
In the last few years of her life, Abbie was admitted to hospital on several occasions with bruises to her arms, neck and chest and was known to the domestic violence team in the area where she lived.
In 2011, she told doctors Sean assaulted her “at least once a month”.
When her ear was badly ripped in July 2011 and had to be stitched back on, she told doctors she intended to leave him and that he prevented her from seeing friends and family.
She even sought help from doctors the day before flying to Cape Town in South Africa to marry Sean.
On Monday, Abbie’s parents Christopher and Carolyn Elson and her close friends gave evidence of Sean subjecting her to a cycle of abuse. They said she sought their help on a number of occasions after he attacked her, but she kept returning to him.
The inquest heard the wedding party included Sean's racing circle as well as his brother but Abbie's friends and family were excluded and only found out they were married after she posted a message on Facebook in February 2013.
The couple flew to Dubai for a two-night stopover on their way back from South Africa but Abbie died on their first night in the UAE.
The inquest continues.
Calls
Directed by: Fede Alvarez
Starring: Pedro Pascal, Karen Gillian, Aaron Taylor-Johnson
4/5
Liz%20Truss
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Results
5pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (Dirt) 1,000m, Winner: Hazeem Al Raed, Antonio Fresu (jockey), Ahmed Al Shemaili (trainer)
5.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 85,000 (D) 1,000m, Winner: Ghazwan Al Khalediah, Hugo Lebouc, Helal Al Alawi
6pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,400m, Winner: Dinar Al Khalediah, Patrick Cosgrave, Helal Al Alawi.
6.30pm: Handicap (TB) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,600m, Winner: Faith And Fortune, Sandro Paiva, Ali Rashid Al Raihe.
7pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,600m, Winner: Only Smoke, Bernardo Pinheiro, Abdallah Al Hammadi.
7.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,600m, Winner: AF Ramz, Saif Al Balushi, Khalifa Al Neyadi.
8pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 2,000m, Winner: AF Mass, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel.
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
More coverage from the Future Forum
Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
INVESTMENT PLEDGES
Cartlow: $13.4m
Rabbitmart: $14m
Smileneo: $5.8m
Soum: $4m
imVentures: $100m
Plug and Play: $25m
The specs: 2019 GMC Yukon Denali
Price, base: Dh306,500
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Power: 420hp @ 5,600rpm
Torque: 621Nm @ 4,100rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 12.9L / 100km
What are NFTs?
Are non-fungible tokens a currency, asset, or a licensing instrument? Arnab Das, global market strategist EMEA at Invesco, says they are mix of all of three.
You can buy, hold and use NFTs just like US dollars and Bitcoins. “They can appreciate in value and even produce cash flows.”
However, while money is fungible, NFTs are not. “One Bitcoin, dollar, euro or dirham is largely indistinguishable from the next. Nothing ties a dollar bill to a particular owner, for example. Nor does it tie you to to any goods, services or assets you bought with that currency. In contrast, NFTs confer specific ownership,” Mr Das says.
This makes NFTs closer to a piece of intellectual property such as a work of art or licence, as you can claim royalties or profit by exchanging it at a higher value later, Mr Das says. “They could provide a sustainable income stream.”
This income will depend on future demand and use, which makes NFTs difficult to value. “However, there is a credible use case for many forms of intellectual property, notably art, songs, videos,” Mr Das says.
UAE's final round of matches
- Sep 1, 2016 Beat Japan 2-1 (away)
- Sep 6, 2016 Lost to Australia 1-0 (home)
- Oct 6, 2016 Beat Thailand 3-1 (home)
- Oct 11, 2016 Lost to Saudi Arabia 3-0 (away)
- Nov 15, 2016 Beat Iraq 2-0 (home)
- Mar 23, 2017 Lost to Japan 2-0 (home)
- Mar 28, 2017 Lost to Australia 2-0 (away)
- June 13, 2017 Drew 1-1 with Thailand (away)
- Aug 29, 2017 v Saudi Arabia (home)
- Sep 5, 2017 v Iraq (away)
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20myZoi%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202021%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Syed%20Ali%2C%20Christian%20Buchholz%2C%20Shanawaz%20Rouf%2C%20Arsalan%20Siddiqui%2C%20Nabid%20Hassan%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20UAE%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2037%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Initial%20undisclosed%20funding%20from%20SC%20Ventures%3B%20second%20round%20of%20funding%20totalling%20%2414%20million%20from%20a%20consortium%20of%20SBI%2C%20a%20Japanese%20VC%20firm%2C%20and%20SC%20Venture%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Afghanistan squad
Gulbadin Naib (captain), Mohammad Shahzad (wicketkeeper), Noor Ali Zadran, Hazratullah Zazai, Rahmat Shah, Asghar Afghan, Hashmatullah Shahidi, Najibullah Zadran, Samiullah Shinwari, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Dawlat Zadran, Aftab Alam, Hamid Hassan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman.
Generation Start-up: Awok company profile
Started: 2013
Founder: Ulugbek Yuldashev
Sector: e-commerce
Size: 600 plus
Stage: still in talks with VCs
Principal Investors: self-financed by founder
UAE v United States, T20 International Series
Both matches at ICC Academy, Dubai. Admission is free.
1st match: Friday, 2pm
2nd match: Saturday, 2pm
UAE squad: Mohammed Naveed (captain), Rohan Mustafa, Ashfaq Ahmed, Shaiman Anwar, Rameez Shahzad, Amjad Gul, CP Rizwan, Mohammed Boota, Abdul Shakoor, Ahmed Raza, Imran Haider, Sultan Ahmed, Zahoor Khan, Amir Hayat
USA squad: Saurabh Netravalkar (captain), Jaskaran Malhotra, Elmore Hutchinson, Aaron Jones, Nosthush Kenjige, Ali Khan, Jannisar Khan, Xavier Marshall, Monank Patel, Timil Patel, Roy Silva, Jessy Singh, Steven Taylor, Hayden Walsh
Mubadala World Tennis Championship 2018 schedule
Thursday December 27
Men's quarter-finals
Kevin Anderson v Hyeon Chung 4pm
Dominic Thiem v Karen Khachanov 6pm
Women's exhibition
Serena Williams v Venus Williams 8pm
Friday December 28
5th place play-off 3pm
Men's semi-finals
Rafael Nadal v Anderson/Chung 5pm
Novak Djokovic v Thiem/Khachanov 7pm
Saturday December 29
3rd place play-off 5pm
Men's final 7pm
Day 2, stumps
Pakistan 482
Australia 30/0 (13 ov)
Australia trail by 452 runs with 10 wickets remaining in the innings
TV: World Cup Qualifier 2018 matches will be aired on on OSN Sports HD Cricket channel
How tumultuous protests grew
- A fuel tax protest by French drivers appealed to wider anti-government sentiment
- Unlike previous French demonstrations there was no trade union or organised movement involved
- Demonstrators responded to online petitions and flooded squares to block traffic
- At its height there were almost 300,000 on the streets in support
- Named after the high visibility jackets that drivers must keep in cars
- Clashes soon turned violent as thousands fought with police at cordons
- An estimated two dozen people lost eyes and many others were admitted to hospital
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The biog
Born: Kuwait in 1986
Family: She is the youngest of seven siblings
Time in the UAE: 10 years
Hobbies: audiobooks and fitness: she works out every day, enjoying kickboxing and basketball
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request