The Final Chapters

I wrote to him straight away to end the relationship. The police had asked me not to tell him that I knew about his past because he too had rights and he may never offend again. They told me that they preferred that I told no-one except perhaps one close friend whom I could trust. So once again I began to live a lie. I told him that things were not working betweeen us and that I felt it best for both of us if I ended things. I wished him well and hoped he would, at last, be able to live a good life of freedom now that he was no longer on licence.

He was devastated, he wrote again and again begging me to stay. Then he said there was no point in living anymore. Then I got a phone call from the Prison Chaplin saying he was concerned for his state of mind and would I please talk to him. The police had advised that I cut off all contact. So I told the Chaplin I didn't wish to speak to him and that he had to accept it was over. This, of course, he wouldn't and his pleading turned to threats.

The Final Chapters part 2 - re-written

He had lent me some money, while he was in prison, I was struggling to pay my mortgage and he insisted that I use his money to pay my arrears. I resisted this offer until the Mortgage Company threatened me with repossession and then against my better judgment I accepted.

As soon as I borrowed this money, he began to use it against me. If I did anything wrong (in his eyes) he would say right I want my money back ‘Now’ and then you can ---- off. Of course, he knew I wasn’t in a position to pay him back and so this became yet another hold he had over me.

After I ended the relationship, when his pleas and outpourings of love and promises to change or to do anything that might change my mind, didn’t work. He began to threaten me that if I didn’t pay him back his money immediately he would come after me as soon as he was released. I told him I was in the throws of selling my flat and as soon as it was sold he would get his money. He accused me of stealing his money and that he would get revenge on me one way or another.

His release date was pending and so was Christmas and so I decided to go and stay with my sister for a while. It was suggested to me by the police that I leave before he got out for my own safety. This I duly did. Before I left England I borrowed money from a very kind friend in order to pay him back what I owed him. I wrote to him telling him that I would leave a cheque with the probation office for him to collect when he was released.

Just before Christmas I received a phone call, in Belgium, from the police to say that he had broken into my flat and stolen my mail. He had strewn it all along the streets. He had been arrested, charged and released on bail. He told the police he was looking for money.

He started harassing my friends to try to find out where I was living. He asked them for my phone number claiming that I still owed him money. He told them I owed him 400 pounds for phone calls he had made to me whilst he was in prison and that I also owed him for the Christmas and birthday presents that he had bought me. He went round to the house of a frail friend of mine who had recently been in hospital. I had told this friend what was going on and I said if 'he' turned up he was not to pass on my number. But in his fear and confusion he gave him my new number instead of my old one.

As a result I received a phone call from him. It was such a shock. I hadn’t spoken to him since I last visited him in Highpoint Prison, before the police had told me what he’d done.
I was quite shaken and taken off guard. I asked him how he had found out my number, he said there are ways and means and he would always find me. I guessed he had visited one of my friends and so I took a deep breath and told him if he ever contacted my friends or family again I would tell the police, with that I hung up and removed my sim card.

I informed the police but there was nothing they could do but they hoped that when his case came to court for stealing my mail he would be warned never to come near me again. But in the mean-time he was free to roam the streets and harass my friends. They made it clear that they believed it was no longer safe for me to return to my flat.

I was due back in England shortly; I couldn’t stay at my sisters indefinitely. It was suggested to me by the victim support unit that I go into a women’s refuge.

I just couldn’t understand how any of this could be happening. I was just an ordinary member of society. People like me didn't end up in a women's refuge. I had never been on the wrong side of the law. My only mistake was getting involved with someone like him. I didn’t want to leave my home, my friends, my life. It wasn’t right or fair that I had to and yet when I thought of what he had done to those women I was too scared to risk it. I knew, as I knew the sun would rise in the morning, that if I went back to the flat he would come round and bang on the door, he would shout and curse and threaten me. But worse than this, I was frightened that he might be around any corner in the street or that he would come up behind me one day.

Two weeks later I moved into the refuge.