Domestic abuse all too often remains hidden behind closed doors – and develops slowly over several years.

Rachel Williams was shot by her estranged husband after she left their abusive relationship. In April 2018, she told Sky News her story:

I met Darren when I was 21 years old in March 1993. I was a single mum to my son Josh, who was two years old.

Darren was charming and very funny. We would sit and talk all night during the first few weeks of dating.

He was easy to talk to and opened up quite quickly about his brother’s suicide four years earlier and how he was brought up in a violent home.

I had a lot of empathy for this man who was 6ft 7in tall, and at the time weighed 18.5 stone.

Darren worked on the door as a bouncer and being the size he was really slotted into the role. He seemed the perfect gentle giant – how wrong was I.

Only later to discover over the years when I was in it too deep, I was to become a victim of domestic abuse and violence for the best part of 18 years.

People always ask: “Why didn’t she leave?”

Well, let’s start asking: “Why doesn’t he stop?”

The process of abuse is not a slap on the first, second or third date, this is a drip fed process over years.

I didn’t fall in love with a monster, but I certainly fell out of love with one.

The first time anything happened was after my friend’s house party which was for her birthday.

It had been a great night and everyone had fun.

On the way home myself and Darren took a short cut through a park, his mood soon changed. “So what about you then, you little slag?” he spat.

“Eh?” I replied, unsure whether he was joking or not.

“How many boyfriends you had before me then?”

After a brief moment, I remembered a conversation we’d had at the party. An ex of mine had been mentioned, completely innocently and in passing. He wasn’t even really a proper boyfriend, just someone I’d been on a few nights out with.

That must be why he was upset I thought. After explaining this to Darren and then saying it’s the past its nothing to do with you, I then lost my footing and was toppling down a small embankment. I landed awkwardly, face down in stinging nettles.

Did Darren just push me? Being tipsy I wasn’t sure and couldn’t be sure because I had not been going out with him for long and he wasn’t like that… right?

I climbed back up the bank expecting Darren’s hand to be there to help me up but he had already started walking away. I followed behind like a wounded puppy.

What the hell had just happened I thought, he had never spoken to me before like that, he was always loving and kind, telling me constantly how beautiful I was, I clearly had too much to drink and slipped.

Darren made his way home after our first argument and returned the next day. When he saw my face he broke down, he apologised and said sorry. He said: “I can’t believe I pushed you.”

He was mortified and so upset. I couldn’t believe that he did push me, I was tipsy and so unsure.

Over the next year our relationship progressed, and it was going well, we went on walks together and had fun.

I saw Darren at times as being vulnerable, he never got over his brother’s death and suffered anxiety and depression, he would really open up to me, I saw he had a bit of a temper, but don’t we all?

After a year of dating I fell pregnant.

The next vivid moment of abuse was when I was seven months pregnant, after an argument Darren had lifted me off the floor by my throat, he let me go when my lips turned blue – those were his words.

There was no leaving now I was in this deep, constantly being told that there was only one way out for me and that was in a wooden box. The fear now was really and truly ingrained.

Darren was now going to the gym five times a week and injecting anabolic steroids and taking a combination of anti-depressant and sleeping tablets. He was unpredictable and a ticking time bomb.

Over the years the violence was sporadic, I was not only a victim of domestic abuse I was also very much a survivor, surviving in my own home, constantly risk assessing and managing outbursts by him to the best of my ability.

I was not living I was existing.

Finally, the fear of staying with Darren became greater than the fear of leaving him.

It was 9 July 2011. Darren strangled me and then slit his wrists in front of our son, Jack, who was 16 at the time.

This was the day that switch went off in my head and I went full steam ahead regardless of the outcome. I could no longer exist in this environment with my boys.

I left, filed for divorce and managed to somehow put the marital home up for sale.

During the next six weeks, Darren stalked and harassed me, he threatened suicide if I didn’t go back with him (something abusers say all the time as part of their control).

This time though it was very different, something had happened inside me.

I engaged with the police, gave a lengthy historical statement and they arrested Darren, bailed him to appear in court some months later.

On 19 August 2011, my estranged husband walked into my place of work, a hair salon, and opened fire on me with a sawn-off shotgun.

After shooting me he battered me and then fled the salon and went and hanged himself.

I spent six weeks in hospital where surgeons battled to save my leg.

I was black and blue, I sported black eyes for those six weeks and had Darren’s boot mark embedded in my arm and his finger marks in my back as bruises.

I was finally discharged from hospital on Friday 23 September and my beautiful son Jack committed suicide on Monday 26 September.

Jack is the tragedy in my case, I should not have buried my son because I left my abuser.

All this destruction because of one man’s actions.

Domestic abuse and violence is an epidemic and it not only affects the victim and the children who too are victims, but it affects the whole family.

We must start to look at these perpetrators through the same lenses as sex offenders and the Government needs to invest so much more into this disease that is destructive.

I later found out in the reports that were compiled because of my case that Darren had a history of domestic abuse and violence with a previous girlfriend, something that I never knew but should have been aware of.

There is so much that needs changing in regards to how we deal as a society with domestic abuse and violence – and we owe it to the next generation to eradicate it, this is all our problem.

Rachel’s book is available here.

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