His Rights, My Prison
How appeals funded by Legal Aid prolong the abuse
By Alana*, an anonymous submission to Make Yourself Heard
*Name has been changed to protect identity
The joy I should be feeling, loving my life and cherishing my family, all turns to horror scenarios flashing through my nightmares when a letter from the Witness Care team lands on my hall floor…repeatedly in the three years since my abuser has been in prison, this has been the case.
I didn’t set out to be a victim of domestic abuse; I didn’t intend to be a prisoner and not a partner for ten terror-filled years, but the shackles of control and coercion sneak slowly around your life until, before you know it, you're contemplating death as your only means of escape.
For ten years, I was tortured and abused and coercively controlled until I was no longer able to think for myself. My friends are long gone, my family is confused by me not being able to do things, and my body being used as a sex object for my abusers’ perverse pleasure on a daily basis. I contemplated death. His or mine. I wanted to be alive for my children, but I wanted the torturous pain to stop. Vicious, degrading sex every day. Multiple times a day. He tracked my every move, timed me going to the shop, hacked my phone, emails, and apps, so everything went to his phone. I couldn’t even search the internet, as my browser history went straight to him. He followed me if I went out with my children. When I arranged to meet friends, he came to every meet-up I had with them, so they stopped asking me to go places, or I stopped saying yes, as the repercussions of a coffee with friends were too horrific. I wasn’t allowed to go to the hairdresser alone. He came everywhere with me.
He recorded me regularly. So, when he left the room, I was still being recorded. I was in a cage, unable to escape his shackles of control.
Securing freedom in August 2022 through a four-week crown court trial was a turning point in my life. At last, I could think for myself. My healing journey could begin. I vowed I’d use my brutal experience of report to court and my torture by a sadistic rapist to help educate others, and I have. I’ve spoken at police and probation service conferences. I’ve spoken to industry leaders, used my survivors voice for radio interviews and TV documentaries, all while retaining my anonymity. I must remain anonymous because his family continued to harass and stalk me after the trial until I was forced to change jobs so they could no longer find me.
A few months after the trial, I received a letter. My abuser was appealing his conviction. My world fell apart. What if he were freed? I’d gone through four weeks of brutal, vile questioning with my whole life, even my life before him, laid bare in the courtroom. The ten years of abuse seemed to pale into insignificance next to his barristers’ questioning of me. How could he now be appealing? It was 6 months before I was told it had been denied. I was furious that he was allowed to use the Legal Aid system to continue to try to control me. I picked myself up and tried to focus on my recovery once again.
Only a few weeks later, another letter arrived. He was trying again. I kept being told it was his right. But it doesn’t make it right!! What about my rights? I felt insignificant, irrelevant, like my thoughts and feelings no longer mattered. Again, using the Legal Aid system, he was destroying my recovery and appealing his conviction for the second time. My world fell apart while I waited. This time it went to the Court of Appeal and again was denied. A huge relief. I could pick up my life again and continue to heal, only I couldn’t because a few weeks later, another letter. This time, he was appealing his sentence length. I had a longer wait this time. Almost 9 months to discover he had been denied. Surely that would be it. Surely he would stop now?. … NO!! This man is hell bent on controlling my recovery like he did my whole life, and he was going to use the Legal Aid system to do so. Another letter a few weeks later. He was demanding a Criminal Case Review. Again, I waited months. My life and recovery on hold once again. I continued to do radio interviews and helped spread the word about the Open Justice For All campaign for free court sentencing remarks. I had mine, and I willingly spread the word about how empowered I felt reading those remarks.
All the time I’m waiting for the outcome of the review. Finally, it was denied. The case was watertight! I breathed a sigh of relief. I start again. Start to recover, determined to heal. I pick myself back up, and literally weeks later, another letter. He’s appealing his sentence again. This time it will go before the Court of Appeal. I’m told to expect a long wait. There’s a backlog. … he was convicted in 2022. He has used up every year since then appealing. I’ve picked myself up and dusted myself down every year, only for the appeals process to destroy me once again. How can the Legal Aid system be used by a convicted coercive controller and abuser to continue to abuse his victim?
The judge said he was a danger to women in her summing up. I know this because I have my transcript. Yet he’s allowed to use the Government purse to continue to be a danger to me. He was found guilty of seven offences, including rape, voyeurism, and controlling behaviour, amongst other things, and yet every year since he was convicted, he has made a mockery of the court system and continues his abuse and control over my emotions through the courts. Not because he thinks he is innocent. He knew what he was doing to me. But because he can use government funds to do so. It’s something that needs to be looked at. To be stopped. The abuse of the Legal Aid system to abuse a rape victim should be something we all find abhorrent.
Five times in three years, he’s used Legal Aid to torture me. Five times in three years, I’ve been thrown into despair when I should be recovering. How is this allowed? How is it right? I was brave enough to secure my freedom. Telling myself the whole time that his abusive nature ends with me. That I would be the cycle breaker. He always said he’d kill me. Almost every day, he said I’d be killed if I left him, and to forever know he was coming for me if I dared to leave. The courts are allowing his threats to continue under the guise of the appeals process. There must be safeguards in place to stop this. To put an end to his abuse. Why should I have to continue to have my emotions controlled by an abuser behind bars? It’s like I am the one in prison, behind bars created by an abuser who has been found guilty yet can continue to destroy me because it’s his “right”.
Every single time I receive a letter informing me he is appealing, I write to my MP, to the Government, to our Police and Crime Commissioner… to anyone I can think of .. to women’s charities .. telling them the effect it is having on me. Yet I’m constantly told it’s his right. What about me? The victim. My voice isn’t heard. My status as a victim continues after three years of seven guilty verdicts. I can’t possibly recover while he uses Government money to destroy my peace. How is that even allowed? How can he continue to be a threat to my life? Where will it end? Will I end if I become a statistic whose name Jess Phillips reads out in Parliament? Dead because my abuser wouldn’t stop, and the Government purse enabled him to continue? I hope I’m stronger than that. That I’ll continue to fight for my freedom. But when the judge sentenced him to 15 years to serve 12 in prison and three on licence, she might as well have given him a knife, because he’s continued to twist it in my gut ever since.
I know and so does my family, that when he is finally freed, he will come to finish the job he didn’t complete despite his best efforts. He doesn’t care about prison, if he did, when he was released on bail after being on remand for months, with strict instructions not to come near me, he wouldn’t have come straight to my house and blocked my road end with his car so I couldn’t escape. Killing me is his dream, returning to prison for doing so is not his nightmare!
“The Government must put protocols in place to stop this abuse of victims of serious sexual offences and domestic abuse through the Legal Aid system. This needs to end so others in my position can focus on recovery and survival, not torture and death.”
