Original subtitles

This programme contains some strong language

and some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

That's where I got burned - there.

My scars tell a story.

That's a stab wound, there.

And then that's a stab wound there.

There's just loads and loads and loads and loads of marks

and they're all caused by hammers,

just constantly being whacked on my shins.

And then my whole head's got just divots...

..and scars.

When the police found me, I was told I was ten days away from death.

I was in love with Jordan and it took me a long time

to have the courage to say... she was abusing me.

People always ask me, "Why didn't you walk away?"

But it's so complicated.

As each day goes by, I'm understanding it more.

OK, Alex. So, today's Sunday - it's 11th June 2017.

I notice you've got a bandage to your arm.

I know that you've explained to me you've got some injuries.

Are you fit and well to do the interview today?

Yeah, yeah, that's fine.

First of all then, if you could introduce yourself.

Um, my name's Alexander Skeel. I'm 21.

In your own words, I want you to tell me why you're here today.

I'm here because yesterday afternoon there was...

The neighbours heard arguing in the house, so they phoned the police.

I grew up in Bedford.

I basically just played football.

Every Saturday and Sunday, I was playing football, pretty much.

I didn't really care about girls.

I didn't at all until Jordan came along.

My friend was in a college performance,

so I went to it and she'd come to see HER friend.

We just started talking.

I was a bit surprised

because I'd never really spoke to many girls at all.

It felt quite cool.

It was quite nice to say to people, "What did you do at the weekend?"

"I met up with Jordan."

She was very caring, confident, loving.

She just showed a real interest in me.

Start again sort of thing?Yeah.

You're both very young, aren't you? How old are you?

OK.

So, what were you doing?

Tell me about the knife.

So, how far do you think the knife went in, Jordan?

Alex was a kid that I knew from the playground at school.

We just, like, clicked.

So, it was normal to get to know his girlfriend.

Alex's family went on holiday

and Alex and Luke weren't going, sort of teenagers,

were like, "No we'll have a free house. That'll be cool."

Jordan was there and she was part of the group.

We got drunk a few nights. We ended up singing Bastille on a shed roof

and she seemed pretty cool.

It's all good, like, we're all mates now.

She was friendly when we first met.

She was always quite quiet as well - quite timid.

Everyone loved her.

Everyone thought she was lovely.

Everyone thought she was just delightful.

He was just absolutely smitten by her -

absolutely loved her to bits.

She was just...just a bit tricky.

We are a really close family and she didn't get us.

She used to say things like,

"Why do you all sit around a table and eat dinner?"

She'd say, "I don't really like the colour grey, I don't think

"you should wear the colour grey.

"I don't like your hair like that.

"You should have your hair like this.

"Oh, I don't like the shoes that you're wearing."

But I never took it as a negative.

It was more or less like, it won't impress her,

I won't wear it again sort of thing.

Her behaviour started to change.

The longer they were together, and how the relationship grew,

the mind games started playing.

We booked Lion King in London for her 18th birthday.

We had a great time, it was lovely.

Then Alex messaged us like at midnight, going, "She's gone.

"I don't know where she is."

I went into the toilet and I come out and she'd just disappeared.

I didn't know where she'd gone.

We were all just, like, looking around for about an hour.

And I just remember Alex saying, "I found her."

She was back inside the hotel, like, reception area

and she's just laughing, sort of thing.

It is just all a bit weird.

Mum and Dad were saying, "No, that's not right."

And then you're sort of thinking,

"When it's just us two, it's not like that, so you're wrong."

Alex's mum wanted a big bash for her boys.

She loves to show off her boys

and, to be fair, like, they were doing so well.

Like, Luke just got into uni,

Alex was going on to college.

I was really excited for their 18th -

seemed like it was going to be really good.

I hired a hall and we had special invites made.

He had a Leeds United cake, as he would.

There was my mum's friend's daughter that used to come

round quite a bit and Jordan said, "She's there.

"I'm not going to go," sort of thing.

And I said, "I don't know if she is actually going."

And she was there.

And then, like, halfway through the party,

suddenly there's shouting.

Jordan targeted a 15-year-old girl -

my best friend's daughter.

Beautiful girl, very attractive.

She just screamed abuse at her.

He was spending time with his family, his friends

and she just wanted Alex all to herself.

The music just stopped.

Alex was sobbing.

Ged was, "What do you think you're doing?"

Telling Jordan to leave the party and stuff like this.

And Alex was like, "No, I want her to stay at the party."

There was like 100-odd people just staring at this argument

and the girl involved was my girlfriend.

I took Alex away to the bathroom and he was just screaming,

like, "I need to look after her. I need to be with her,

"like, I love her."

He was saying, "Look, leave her, leave her. She's not good."

I was a bit clouded by what happened because obviously at the time

I loved her and everything.

I think it was about a week or two afterwards, I remember

having a few arguments and then she snapped my Sim card.

It's just the penny dropped and I thought,

"She's just not right. Everyone is right."

I thought, "No, I'm not doing this.

"I'm going to go. That's it. I'm done."

It was a cause for celebration for us, like.

We thought, "Finally, we've got him back."

We felt like we'd got him out of something very bad.

Then just sort of a bombshell was dropped.

She come back into Alex's life.

Out of the blue, she got his friends to go and pick her up

to bring her here to tell us she was pregnant.

And I'm like, "Yeah, right.

"That old chestnut. You can do a test in my house."

You know, I'm not falling for that.

So, she did do a test in the house and she was pregnant.

I said to Alex, "You don't have to be with her

"but you need to stand by her."

So, that's fine. I don't mind paying my way

but I was thinking, "I can't be with you."

There's just no way that's happening

cos I couldn't deal with her constant mind games

time and time again.

Then I didn't hear from her for a year.

I got this text to say...

And it was like, "Yes."

She just walked up to my doorstep on 12th August.

She spun the car seat round and it was just Alex.

I just fell in love with him

and I couldn't shut the door on my grandson.

I went absolutely off my head.

I said, "Why the fuck did you let her in?"

and all this, that and the other.

I went, "I get that and I do understand what you're saying,"

I said, "But, please, let me be his nan."

Mum was like, "She seems lovely. She's changed.

"Being a mum has obviously changed her."

A beautiful little boy there.

We all gave her the benefit of the doubt. She's a mum now.

You know, give her a chance.

And we even said to Alex, "Give her a chance."

Alex's mum arranged for him to meet the kid but without seeing Jordan.

And it was very much like, he was like,

"OK. That's disassociated it a bit already.

"I don't have to see her."

He still hated her guts but he can see his kid.

I knew for about a week that I was going to be seeing TJ

for the first time and I sort of said,

"Now, look, I want to do it with Grandad.

"We're close, really close."

Whenever I was ill, I always wanted to be with Grandad.

So, my grandad driving the car,

he goes, "He's a lovely little boy, you know.

"He's lovely.

"You'll love him."

I just remember walking in and he's just lying there,

kicking around being a little monkey, basically.

And I just thought, "Yeah, that don't really surprise me,"

cos that's what I'm like.

It kind of all went a bit fast forward from there.

Before we knew it, she was living with the Skeels.

She was lovely.

Couldn't fault her, and it was just this lovely, extended happy family.

She's a mum and I can't say she didn't love that TJ cos she did.

But, one point, I said to her,

"So, what is it about Alex you love?"

You know, joking about. What is it?

She just said, "Oh, he's the best.

"He's just the best."

It all seemed nice - too nice.

And it was like, "Shit."

And I said to Ged, I was like,

"I've a very bad feeling that he's falling for her again."

And, bloody hell, January 1st,

Facebook official, they were together again.

He saw this as his life.

He felt it was his happily ever after.

It was probably the best it ever was.

It was fun.

I was happy, she was happy.

TJ was happy.

And then the cracks started coming.

She'd just got back into his head,

to a point where you couldn't do anything to stop it.

They were out driving and the girl that she attacked at the party

was walking on the street.

And they shouted abuse at her.

Course her mum rang me and said, "They're abusing her in the street."

I said I wasn't happy with these mind games starting again.

I thought we'd gone past that.

I thought we'd all moved on and grown up.

I said, "We're not having it."

So, she packed all of TJ's stuff up and she told Alex he was to choose.

It was definitely TJ.

I didn't want to not see him.

I thought, "She won't let me see TJ any more."

And I'd obviously bonded with him

over the last eight months or something.

So, I literally just moved out

and that was the last time I went home.

He was only 19 when he went away.

My world fell apart really.

It was horrible and I never saw Alex for two years.

Do you love Alex?I do.

Obviously, things have got particularly out of hand

in your relationship. Yeah.OK.

Alex spent some time with us today, all right?

And he's quite upset about what's happened

and he's told us some quite shocking things that have been going on.

I was happy and I thought, "I'm there for my son

"and we're going to be a family."

Shortly after I moved in, little things changed.

She started accusing me of doing things with girls

when we weren't together and she was pregnant with TJ.

"Did I ever see this girl, ever speak to this girl?"

I'd say, "I didn't do that."

She wouldn't believe it.

It just got to the point where she kept asking and asking and asking.

She changed my phone.

I got a new phone and phone number.

She got rid of the PlayStation because it was a form of contact

to, like, people I knew.

I could say, "I'm a muppet and everything,"

but you're so caught up in everything, you just don't know.

I didn't know where he was

and I got so desperate that I sent him a pound,

using mobile banking and just said, "I love you," and I got back,

"I hate you. Stay away from me."

It was horrible. I grieved for him.

I used to have the most horrific dreams - a lot of my dreams

would go back to when he was a baby.

I was having twins and I went for

just a standard check, approaching 30 weeks.

You know, faffing and faffing.

And I just looked at the nurse and I just said...

.."There's a problem, isn't there?"

And she said... And she just went straight over to the phone,

she said, "We've got Mrs Skeel here and I'm losing twin two.

"I'm bringing her up to delivery now."

When I came round, they said, "We'll take you to see your babies."

Alex was 2 lbs.

So, I said, "I don't want to look at him. Take me away."

I was frightened to love him.

I've always worried about him.

You know. I don't worry about my other two sons

but I always worried about him.

Alex seems relieved that he's now going home...

..back to his family,

he feels he's being isolated from.

He states the majority of the contact with his family

has been stopped because you've stopped him having contact.

Would you say at any point you have made it difficult for him

to see his friends or family?

One day, she comes upstairs and she says, "Oh, my mum's just got

"a message off of your mum to say that your grandad has died."

And I was really, really upset because I couldn't say goodbye.

I just kept thinking, "How am I ever going to forgive myself?"

And then, a few hours later, she was, "Why are you upset?"

I said, "Well, because you just told me

"probably the most important person in my life has died."

She was like, "He's not dead."

If you think, "Yeah, he's gone and now he isn't."

She obviously was jealous of the bond that I had with Grandad.

That first month was brilliant.

It was really good.

We had a nice house in a nice place.

There was no arguing.

And, if everything carried on the way it was and kept going to plan,

we'd have been absolutely fine.

We'd have been more than fine.

We decided that we'd try for another child.

And then straight away we found out she was pregnant

and I thought, "Well, that's, like, amazing."

I was really happy.

But then everything just gradually got worse and worse and worse.

I went to work. It was a really good job and I really enjoyed it.

She told me that I needed to leave because it weren't good enough.

I didn't like leaving.

She was going to university.

Jordan said, "You're going to come to uni with me every day

"because I don't trust you at the home because you're going to go back

"to see your mum and dad without me knowing."

I don't know how I would have got the money.

She'd took my wallet off me.

So then, after that, I just went to uni with her every single day.

Alex became a ghost - like he's untraceable.

And he's missing all these massive things

we'd spoke about years before.

I literally could not listen to Bastille while he was away.

Bastille would come on and I'd start crying in the middle of a club.

We found a Facebook page of Alex but his name was spelt A-L-I-X

and his middle name of Thomas.

And that was very weird.

Sent him a friend request and I got a message off Alex.

I was like, "Right. Here we go."

I knew it wasn't a message off Alex.

It was like, "I've never been your fucking friend.

"I've never wanted anything to do with you."

It's, "I've just been lying to you this whole time."

And I remember literally replying, "You all right, Jordan?

"It's finally my turn, then, is it?"

And then just blocked.

17th August 2016.

What I said was, "Happy birthday Alex. We miss you very much.

"Love you, Nan and Grandad."

All I got was, "Don't message me again."

And that really cut me up.

I received a message from Alex's Facebook account.

It said something along the lines of...um...

"Are you still fat?"

Something she knew would potentially upset me.

A Facebook page told me

that they'd moved into a house in Stewartby.

So we knew roughly where he was but we didn't know where.

I even said, "Look, I'm putting a stop to this. I'm going to find him.

"I'm going to go and find him."

A friend of mine, who was brought up in Stewartby,

he drove round as well.

She loved elephants.

My son George was with me and he said,

"There's an elephant in the window up there."

So I said, "That's got to be it, then."

So I banged on the door and all the lights went dead, black.

Nothing.

And then, at one point, a downstairs light come on

and I saw the outline of Alex go into the kitchen,

and then the light went out, he went back upstairs

and I just said, "He hates us."

You know, when he's ready, we'll see him

but, until then, we've just got to leave it.

He says that you go at him about this period of time

that you had a break in your relationship. OK?

And that you question him relentlessly

and that you go on about it a lot.

And that, if he doesn't answer you,

you then become violent towards him.

We went to Winter Wonderland in London.

She had just accused me all the time of liking these girls.

And, as soon as we got in, she said, "She's got a message

"off one of them." And I said, "I didn't do anything."

She goes, "You're not telling me the truth."

So we kept walking.

She was like, "We're not going to go."

I said, "No, we are. We've come all this way.

"It's just pointless to just go back."

Then she was like, "Go into Boots

"and buy some one-a-day sleeping tablets.

"And as long as you take one, we'll go."

I've got the sleeping tablets. I just took one.

And then she goes, "Put all the rest of them in your mouth."

So I put all of them in my mouth and she said,

"Crunch them down and then swallow them."

I just did as I was told.

It was really strange.

I was like full-on dozing off.

It was so strong.

I don't remember anything about how we left there.

Alex has said, since, mainly, that

you've been living at this address... Yeah.

..he has almost been attacked or physically put through

some sort of, um, assault

pretty much every day since about September.

He states that if you missed a night of hitting him,

you would then make up for it the next night.

We went out and everything seemed OK.

And I looked out the window.

And she goes, "Right. That's it."

She picked up her hairbrush

and she just full-on went whack, straight there.

And the tooth was near enough off.

I had no money. I didn't drive.

So in the end, I just went like that and just ripped the tooth out.

Tell me about this hairbrush that you keep in the car.

There was so many occasions where I'd be asleep

and she'd smack me on the head

and I'd just go in the mirror and I'd look

and I'd just be bleeding.

She started to use knives.

I wasn't eating properly.

She didn't let me.

She said, "You're not allowed to sleep in the bed."

So I slept on the floor.

I could feel that my body was starting to shut down.

I didn't want TJ to get hurt,

so I was fighting to keep going

because I didn't know what was going to happen if I was to leave.

I was beside myself.

We were angry. We were hurt. We were upset.

It was horrible.

There was always that...like that missing link to us all.

His dad, Graham, called me and said,

"Come on, Sue. Will you come with me?"

He's asking for help down the phone.

So we went back to the house.

Get there, all the lights go off again.

And I said, "If you don't open the door, I'm ringing the police."

And he was going, "Go away. I don't want you here."

And he said, "No, you've called for help and I'm here."

Two cars came.

They told us to sit in the car while they went in,

and they came out to us and said, "Oh, they've had a row."

The police said they put them in separate rooms,

had a word with them. "It's all fine.

But your son is walking with a limp."

And that was it.

We went and watched Bastille in a concert in Leeds.

It WAS fun.

My favourite band in my favourite city.

But the next morning, I remember waking up in the morning

to boiling water being poured on my back.

It was horrible.

It hurt. It was so sore.

And it was so bad, he screamed.

He says that he's told to make a story up.

To tell your parents that the shower in the hotel was faulty.

Have you ever subjected him to a lie detector test?

Would you do that regularly?

She got a �5 lie detector and she told me to strap my hand in it.

And she had a boiling water kettle.

The lie detector buzzed to suggest that I was lying.

I ran off and I just ended up just slamming the door shut.

I was looking forward to it for a reason.

It could change her from doing all the stuff she's doing to me.

And it might stop it.

But that lasted about three days.

We would literally be up all night -

all night - and she'd just wait with her boiling water.

And if it went cold, she'd just go and re-boil it.

I backed into the corner upstairs in the study room

and she just...she didn't do it with a little bit, she lifted

the whole lid up and just threw it.

I screamed, like, full-on screamed.

A couple of days after that, she had a breadknife on her...

..um...

..and I tried to run off and this hand was then cut across.

It was like middle of the night, like two in the morning.

I was trying to stop her from getting in the bathroom.

I'd had enough.

And then I stood on the toilet

and I went to... She went to go at my head, like here...

..so I went like that.

She started panicking a little bit.

I just remember sitting there

and I think we tied it up with, like, a football sock or something.

Tied it up really tightly on the...on my wrist.

The next thing, the police knock on the door

and there's blue flashing lights.

At the time, I was a frontline response police constable.

We got a 999 call for a domestic disturbance between a man

and a woman, called in by neighbours.

Bedfordshire Police. How can I help?

There's a couple and it sounds like

they're having a really, really bad fight.

He's shouting, "I'm sorry. Not my fault.

"Get off me. Leave me alone.

"Stop hurting me."

We arrived. We had to do quite a bit of knocking

and, "Police, open the door!" Shouting.

Eventually, Jordan came to the door and she looked fine.

You know, she was sort of casually dressed

and didn't look dishevelled or anything.

And she straight away said, "Oh, there's been a problem.

"Alex has hurt himself."

She let us in and we went upstairs.

And, at the top of the stairs, Alex was sat

with a towel wrapped around his arm and just blood everywhere.

There was sort of a large, serrated kitchen knife

and Alex and Jordan were both telling us

that he'd used that knife to cut his wrists, basically.

And she was explaining that Alex suffered

from a medical condition that caused him to have bouts of self-harm,

and then I sort of noticed other injuries on Alex.

And again, when we questioned it, they were both quite sort of calm

and rational and explained that,

"Yeah, you know, Alex has this longstanding history of self-harm."

It didn't appear that there'd been any incident at all between them.

It's certainly not how it came across.

We left. Alex went to hospital.

SIREN WAILS

I was lying there with, like, a paracetamol drip in my arm

and they had to, like, scrape all of the rubbish skin away

and literally it was just left red, pink and raw.

I was just about to go in to have surgery

and Jordan walked me out of the hospital.

The nurses kept saying, "Please stay with us. Please stay with us."

And they ended up getting the consultant down.

And, as I walked off, he sort of held me by the face

and then, like, put his hands

and he goes, "Are you sure you're safe to go home?"

And I said, "Yes."

It's strange because the whole thing

was the right time at right place.

But I didn't say anything.

I kept saying, "I did it to myself. It was me."

I was scared what she was going to do.

There's something about it just didn't feel right,

so I was I was on shift the next day and, soon as I got on duty,

the first thing I did was try and track Alex down.

But I wasn't able to get hold of him.

A few days after that, on our job system, I saw Alex's address

and it was a call just coming in.

So I called up straight away and said, "I'm going."

We were just shouting and arguing.

And the next thing, the door knocks.

There's a police car outside and I open the door,

and it was Ed standing there and he had a really nice smile on his face.

Hello. How are you doing, mate? Remember me?

What's been going on today, mate?

Soon as I saw him, in the light of day, the state of him,

to be honest, in terms of, you know, the countless injuries

all over his body - the fact

that he had these horrible, dirty clothes on.

He was pale, thin.

I thought, "This is what I think it is.

"This is... He's being abused."

So, Alex, do you want to come and have a chat with me?

We'll go upstairs.

You all right for a minute down here, Jordan, yeah?

Dude, have you been assaulted or anything like that today?

Are you 100% sure, Alex?

I know you said this to me the other night and you're obviously saying it

to me now, but are you 100% sure?

You're not looking me in the eye. You're looking at the floor.

Those injuries...

You're saying you've done it yourself.

They could easily, because of where they are,

they could easily not have been done to yourself, right?

Just hear me out.

Even in the house, he was not budging on his story at all.

He was absolutely adamant. "No, I do this to myself, I do it to myself."

I didn't really want any commotion.

I know if the police get involved, it would possibly

be really difficult.

I was always thinking, "How would she react?"

If I did anything wrong or not what she wanted,

she would go off her head.

That was what was running through my head the whole time.

Yeah, course you can.

I just wanted to try and be as much on his level as I could.

You know, he's a few years younger than me

but not a dissimilar age.

You know, we're both blokes.

And I thought, "I need to get him out of this environment."

Why don't we go down A&E, mate? Get it re-dressed.

Grab a jacket and some shoes, mate. Whatever you've got.

Wallet. Whatever.

So you know where each other are.

He sat me in the police car and he said,

"Right, we're not leaving here until you tell me the truth.

"You need help. She needs help. Your children need help.

"You all need help."

And I still said, "No, I'm doing this all to myself."

BLEEP

I turned my camera off and I said to him, "Look, my camera's off.

"It's just you and me in this car.

Straight away, I just said it.

And I said, "Just please just go on what the neighbours have said

because I don't want to say that it's come from me."

He just quite calmly said to me, "Yes, it was her."

I just need to explain to you that, at the moment, you're under arrest

on suspicion of assault occasioning grievous bodily harm.

OFF CAMERA:I sat her down in the living room.

I didn't really know what to expect in terms of how she was going

to react, because she's very slight, very well-spoken, um, very polite.

You know, to all intents and purposes,

a friendly and well-meaning young lady.

Obviously, it's serious because you have been arrested, yeah?

But we'll go down and we'll have a chat at the police station

and get everything in black and white properly.

You can give your side of the story on tape. Yeah? Yeah.

So what we'll do is we'll leave Iris with your parents. OK.

Yeah? Yeah.Are you happy with that?

On the drive back, she was saying to me,

"How long do you think I'm going to be in?

"Do you think it'll be maybe an hour?"

I said, "Oh, it might be a bit longer than that."

SIREN WAILS

Once we allowed him to get to the hospital by sort of removing

her from the equation, um, the doctor said that he...

..they reckoned, was probably ten days from death.

You know, things couldn't have got much worse

than what they were for Alex.

That night, we put Alex in a hotel.

I think one of the police officers bought him a McDonald's

on the way to the hotel, and he said it was like the best food

he'd ever eaten, because he hadn't eaten a proper, cooked hot meal

for so long.

I had like a buffet breakfast in the morning,

and I was overlooking Bedford River.

I actually sat there and I giggled to myself.

There's me, I've got a T-shirt on, which has bloodstains on it still,

because I didn't have any of my clothes.

I just looked a mess. Bandages...

And there were all these posh people in ties and going, "Lovely bacon."

And I'm sitting there, just like,

"I don't care if I feel out of place here."

OK. So, Alex, have you ever acted in self-defence towards Jordan?

I've never.

I haven't on purpose.

I don't want to hurt her.

No. OK.

Tell me why you've never reported it to the police or anybody else?

Because I thought it would blow under the carpet one day.Yeah?

I thought it would all be fine.

We talked in detail about the incidents that happened

on 3rd June and 10th June, when the police attended, OK?

And you've accepted that you have thrown water over him...

..that was boiling.

OK. And you have accepted that you swiped at him with the knife

and cut him. All right?

But you can't argue about those injuries

because they're quite obvious - the burn marks and the cuts, OK,

because police attended on both these occasions.

All right?

I appreciate it's stressful, you're both quite young,

you've got young children.

Do you suffer from any mental illness yourself?No.

Ever suffer from depression?No.

Ever suffered from any post-natal depression after either pregnancy?

No.

How would you feel today about moving forward?

What are your thoughts and feelings at the moment?

I just don't want to get hurt any more.

The phone was ringing and the phone call was the sergeant.

And she said, "Just to tell you, your son is safe and well."

And I said, "What's happened?"

I said, "Has she hurt him?"

She went, "Yes, he's been burned, stabbed and slashed."

I just screamed.

My sister took the house line and she said,

"Alex is on his way.

"He's on his way home. He wants to come...

"He wants his mum."

What he looked like, coming up there.

He couldn't even barely walk up the path.

I said, "Can I have a cuddle?" And he goes, "Please.

"Just give me a cuddle, Mum."

He said, "I'm sorry."

And he was...spotty.

He didn't even smell alive.

And he said, "The last bullet she's got now is my children,

"and I need to make my children safe."

And, within five days, they're with us.

I just remember meeting my granddaughter for the first time.

I didn't even know she was born.

Hello, mate. How are you?

It was so surreal seeing him again.

I just grabbed him - made sure he was real.

And, um... Yeah.

Just, yeah. Just hugged him very tight.

I'm literally buzzing, mate.Yeah.

HE LAUGHS

It was good to have him back.

He was safe again.

But it was just horrible to hear about what she did to him

and what she put him through,

especially when it's one of your best friends.

Her sentencing day, there was no sense of remorse - "I'm sorry."

The only thing the judge did say was, "Jordan doesn't blame Alex

"for anything that she did to him."

I think, in her mind, the more she did,

and seeing him stay...

..the more she felt like he really did love her

because he still stayed.

And it's really weird

to even comprehend that, because most people wouldn't even think

about pushing the person they loved.

It just wouldn't cross their mind.

CHILDREN GIGGLE

The day that she's going to prison, I felt so free.

It was a massive relief.

I remember just sort of saying,

"I can actually look over my shoulder now

"for the first time in five years without worrying."

It's good that we got there when we did because it's so unusual.

It's a female offender.

Just didn't come together in our heads

as quickly as perhaps it should have done.

I was quite critical of myself after the incident

because I felt like I should've challenged more and seen it more

the first time I attended the address.

We'd all be lying if we didn't say

that we don't sit back and think, "How does this happen to a man?"

It did start very, very subtle. Not allowing him to see his friends

when he wanted to, having to have his hair cut a certain way.

Only allowed to wear certain colours.

That's how it all started.

It didn't start with a knife to his leg.

It took a long time to get to that.

How have you scored that?

How have you scored that?

Domestic abusers - doesn't matter what gender they are.

A victim is a victim and an abuser is an abuser.

There can't be any gender tied to it, because it doesn't matter.

Like, a victim still hurts.

Whether they're a male or a female

and an abuser is still just as nasty,

whether they are male or female.

And it's as simple as that.

Now that I'm free from the relationship,

I'm beginning to understand abuse better...

..and I hope I can help others understand it, too.

Right. Spread around.

No, Joe. You're just blocking the pass off.

OFF SCREEN: I'm starting with the football team I coach.

They are sponsored by a domestic abuse charity...

..and I'm talking to professionals

about how to recognise signs of abuse.

That's going to be locally set up and that's what the groups run out.

OFF SCREEN: The memories will never leave me

but I'm learning how to cope.

TATTOO GUN BUZZES

You going to jump down and have a look in the mirror?

Thank you very much. I like that.

Are you all right?

I have so much support from my friends and family...

..and I'm building a future for me and my kids.