All language subtitles for Louis Theroux - Abused By My Girlfriend BigJ0554

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.