A friend I hadn’t seen in years helped me escape my abuser

You can’t see things when you’re in love. 

I met Damien* in London after a day at work; he was standing outside a restaurant, I winked at him and he walked me home.

We became friends. I was lonely and he paid attention to me; I was a model and recovering from anorexia and he was really supportive. 

We started spending more time together. He was always coming round to my place, bringing me coffee and after over a year seeing each other, we moved in together. Things were good: I was busy working in retail and the fashion industry. I would run home to him with butterflies in my tummy. 

By some miracle, I got pregnant – I didn’t think I could have children having been anorexic for quite a while, so I was thrilled. But that was when things started to change.

Damien and I were living in a studio and I knew we’d need a bigger place. Yet when I asked about moving, he kept finding excuses. He quit his job and started a higher education course, which meant I worked seven days a week to afford our expenses.

He was already quite controlling, telling me not to wear short skirts, ringing me all day and demanding to know where I was if I wasn’t home on time. When our daughter, Sophie* was born, he got worse. He stopped me working more than three days a week and refused if I said I wanted more hours. He barely helped with our daughter.

It wasn’t long before he started hitting me. He used to wake me up in the night and beat the hell out of me while Sophie slept in her cot. Once, he held a hot iron inches from my face: I was crying but frozen, counting the seconds until he put it on my skin.

Damien would spend long hours on the computer – to this day the police won’t tell me what he was looking at but he became obsessed with me and my family being paedophiles and constantly accusing me of abusing Sophie. It was horrific.

I was on the verge of a breakdown but as Damien had banned me from having friends I was incredibly isolated. I did try to call the police once but Damien grabbed my phone, smashed it and poured water over the remains. 

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Looking back, I was trying to save our family. I was raised to believe that you support your partner through whatever. I didn’t want my daughter to grow up without her father and financially, I was paying for everything so I had no savings. 

A bad month would be followed by a few happy, settled weeks when Damien tried to make things up to me. I’d think for a second, OK, things are getting better. 

But what happened every few months started happening every couple of weeks, then every day. 

Whenever I told him that he was hurting me, that what he was doing wasn’t right, he would make out that I was crazy. He’d say: ‘I’m not holding you, if you want to go, leave,’ then threaten to destroy my life and stop me having Sophie.

Eventually, after five years of physical, verbal and financial abuse, Damien beat me up and I fell on to our daughter’s bedroom floor beside a box of nappies. That broke me. I realised that one day I wouldn’t get up again and there would be no one to take care of my child. 

At work the next day, totally bruised, my boss realised what was happening. She helped me to call the police and with their help, I planned to leave.

I called a friend from a pub job I’d had years before. Despite not having seen her for a long time, she told me to just get Sophie and come. I was going to leave that Friday as Damien was having a minor operation but when the day came, he suddenly appeared back at home, claiming that the operation had been cancelled. 

He had a hospital ID band around his wrist. I think he realised people would ask questions if I picked him up covered in bruises.

Somehow, Sophie and I got through the weekend and on Monday morning, I dropped her at nursery and even went to work to make everything appear normal before collecting Sophie and getting on a train to my friend’s. 

When we got there, the police were waiting for me and Damien was arrested two days later for ABH. He instantly pressed charges against me for being a paedophile and the next two months were hell while police and social people workers investigated. I dropped two dress sizes in two weeks.

His accusations were eventually dismissed and six months later we went to court.

I understood at the end of the week-long trial why so many people don’t report domestic abuse. On the stand, Damien’s barrister brought up stuff about my parents and my past that had nothing to do with the case and argued that I had been the controlling one before asking if I was collecting material for a book. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. 

The police called me at the end of the week to tell me that the case had been dismissed as somebody on the jury turned out to be racist. 

I went crazy. When they asked if I wanted to give up or try again I told them there was no way I was giving up. I would go back to court for every single person who didn’t make it that far.

The second trial six months later was equally hellish but I had evidence as I had taken pictures of my bruises and emailed them to myself and a friend. That’s what saved me, otherwise it was my word against his. Damien was sentenced to three and a half years for ABH (now served) and given a lifetime restraining order.

It has been tough. If you hit someone the bruises eventually go away but the psychological abuse scars for life. Sophie and I lived in a hostel after moving back to London and I found it difficult to find a job as a single parent. Money is security. I would have gone crazy if I’d stayed at home on benefits.

Sophie had a lot of problems: tantrums, scratching herself. I don’t think abusers realise when they are hurting you how much they are damaging their kids. Even little ones remember so much.  

After six years, however, we have a normal life. Sophie got support at school through a counselling service called Place2Be, which made a lot of difference – I wish it was in every school. I’ve had support from Refuge, Women’s Aid and Surviving Economic abuse. We have friends and a home and no arguments or horrible energy. The most important thing to us is peace. 

I still have days when I want to cry and give up but worrying about work and childcare will always be better than how it was. And I feel lucky. I wish I had left earlier to stop Sophie’s suffering – the behaviour will never change, abusers will never change – but no one reaches their breaking point until they are totally at the bottom. 

Domestic abuse is still a largely hidden crime and people don’t talk about it because they are ashamed; it’s something you don’t want to tell anyone but by the time you decide to speak out, it might be too late.

Today I talk openly about the domestic abuse I have suffered to show that survivors can find their happy ending. I now have a partner who loves me and my daughter, Sophie is thriving and I am finishing a course to become a domestic abuse counsellor and coach, while supporting Refuge. 

People sometimes ask me if I’m scared, knowing my abuser is out there. I tell them: if I live a life looking over my shoulder, I will never be able to move forward. 

*Names have been changed

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