Friends of ‘mother from hell’ dentist who hanged herself hit back at husband’s claims she was ‘psychotic’

A TRAGIC dentist who committed suicide felt 'unloved' by her husband who has branded her “psychotic” and “violent”, according to a former colleague.

Helen Nicoll, 53, was found hanged at their £1.5 million home in June 2015 after a blazing row with her spouse of 26 years Stephen – a Harley Street dentist.

However, after her husband, 54, claimed that Helen spent years “physically and emotionally” abusing her family at an inquest into her death, her friends and family have painted a different picture of the Cambridgeshire mother.

Speaking with the , a dental nurse who worked with Helen and describes herself as one of her closest friends, said the late-dentist felt “unloved” by her husband who she suspected of having an affair.

She said: "There wasn't any love there. Helen felt that Steve hadn't loved her for a very long, long time.

“The Helen described at the inquest was so far removed from the Helen I knew.

“I worked with her for ten years and she never, ever portrayed herself in the way she was described.”

The former colleague, who does not want to be named, says she saw Helen hours before she took her own life.

The dental nurse, who has since resigned from her role at Hurst Park Dental Practice, says the tragic mother-of-three was desperate to leave her husband.

On the night of her death, Helen was reportedly furious about an email she found which confirmed her suspicions of infidelity – claims Dr Stephen Nicoll has firmly denied.

At the inquest at Cambridgeshire Coroner's Court , Stephen admitted to phoning a friend to cancel a game of golf before phoning an ambulance when he found his wife’s lifeless body.

He said: “I didn't call the ambulance service because she was dead.

“I didn't try to resuscitate her because it felt disrespectful. I didn't know what to do. My first thought was to wait and call the GP surgery when it opened.'

Helen’s siblings have refuted her spouse’s claims about her behaviour  and said her suicide was a “cry for help”.

In a statement, her sisters and brother said: “Helen’s portrayal throughout this inquest is not the Helen we as a family knew.

“There have been too many unanswered questions.”

Helen, 53, originally from Liverpool, believed that her son and two daughters had been brainwashed against her

Her children — all believed to be privately educated — called her “council house” and “Liverpool scum” to her face while her husband did nothing to defend her, the inquest heard.

Her grieving siblings said her death “was a cry for help that would never be heard in the family household in which she lived”.

Stephen was arrested on suspicion of her murder but was released without charge.

But police later told the hearing they believed Mr Nicoll was himself a victim of domestic violence.

The case ended in a narrative verdict, with Cambridgeshire assistant coroner Simon Milburn concluding: “Helen died as the result of a self-inflicted act but the evidence of why remains unclear.”

The saga has shocked friends, family and patients of the couple, who first met at The Royal Dental Hospital in London in 1984.

One friend said: “They are very successful, professional people. There’s never been any trouble between them in the past. They were very together.

“No one can believe Steve would do anything to harm her. Helen was a lovely person.”

Several years earlier, police were called after the couple’s eldest daughter, Georgia, 22, claimed she had been physically assaulted by her mother.

Stephen told the inquest: “My wife punched my children in the face. She gave them black eyes

“She physically and emotionally abused them.”

Charges were never brought and Georgia and Helen were said to have been “very close” at the time of her death.

On the night of her death in June last year, Stephen had met Georgia at a service station and discussed concerns about her mother. He said he then took a long route home and had several missed calls from his wife.

He told the inquest that when he got home, he found that his wife had drunk “all but an inch” of a bottle of wine.

He claims she was “quite drunk” and yelled at him for “talking about me to Georgia”.

During their row, Stephen says she threw his golf clubs outside and took his car keys in an effort to stop him playing golf the next day.

He said: “I did restrain her. I held her wrists to stop her hitting me.

“She told me I was trying to brainwash my daughter.”

She was also alleged to have set upon him over an email she had found in which he offered to take a female colleague for a drink.

He said she slapped him and repeatedly swung at him, telling the hearing he eventually went and curled up on a bed as she continued to hit him.

He said: “She was saying, ‘Give me your phone’ and I was saying, ‘No’. So she started slapping me. She was thumping me. I curled up in a ball on the bed and she started kicking me.

“She was smacking me on the back of the head. I held her wrists to protect myself, thinking, ‘If we could just calm down’. This was all to try and get my phone.”

The inquest heard she then smashed her own head three times against a bedside table, laughing as she did so.

Stephen said she took pictures of her self-inflicted injuries and sent them to Georgia, writing: “Look what your father did to me.”

He said: “Because there’s been a history of violence towards the children, with police involvement, she was very aware of covering her tracks.”

The row went on for two hours. Then, in the early hours of the morning, Helen turned a violin concerto on the radio.

He did not investigate, but told the inquest: “My belief now is that she turned the radio on because she had decided that she was going to do something horrendous.”

He found her dead at 6am the following morning but did not call emergency services for 25 minutes.

Instead he called his friend to cancel a game of golf, then called the couple’s children.

At the inquest he was accused of believing “golf was more important than the fact your wife had taken her own life”.

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