Joanne Barnes, CEO of Nexus NI, told Belfast Live that victims will “quite often minimise other people’s behaviour”
A Northern Irish woman has opened up on the ‘horrifying’ domestic abuse she faced to raise more awareness on the dangers of coercive control.
Fresh out of a ‘painful marriage’, Olivia — who wishes to remain anonymous — was hopeful for a new start when she met her partner.
For 20 months, the then 42-year-old believed she had found a ‘knight in shining armour’ whom she could build her future with.
“I felt very alone and very isolated. I was low-hanging fruit, and ripe for manipulation”, she told Belfast Live.
READ MORE: Belfast Trust Christmas appeal helps survivors of domestic abuse and homeless communityREAD MORE: Campaign encouraging conversations about violence against women launched across NI bars
“This new relationship was full of promise. All of a sudden, this person couldn’t wait to see me. He phoned me ten times a day, gave me flowers and gifts, and I just thought, ‘this is amazing’. And it was for a while.”
But Olivia says she quickly found herself at the centre of a coercive and controlling relationship, which would soon spiral into physical domestic abuse.
“It was like death by a thousand insults. I began to doubt myself, and not understand who I really was”, said Olivia, describing the abuse.
“I thought I was immune to anything like that, and that no man would ever put his hand on me, or emotionally abuse me.
“There’s the idea that you wouldn’t be so daft or so unaware to allow this to happen. But that’s not what coercive control is about. I was groomed while in this relationship.”
According to Women’s Aid Northern Ireland, coercive control is a pattern of controlling behaviours and acts which can include, ‘threats, humiliation and intimidation, assaults or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten’.
Over the past year, awareness has been raised over violence against women and girls in Northern Ireland, with charities such as Women’s Aid and NEXUS NI working tirelessly with domestic abuse victims and the Northern Ireland Executive to make change.
Despite this, a study done by Susan Lagdon of Ulster University showed results indicating a higher number of young females in Northern Ireland unaware of the term and meaning of coercive control, which she describes as concerning due to the “increased risk of intimate partner violence among women and girls”.
A perpetrator of coercive control is often said to initially appear as supportive in a relationship. That was the case for Olivia, who said the first year of her relationship was “so exciting.” It took until 20 months into the relationship for Olivia’s partner to show a sign of abusive behaviour.
She added: “We were going to a concert in Belfast, and whilst trying to find a parking spot, I saw a space without realising that it was a disabled bay.
“And out of nowhere, he called me every name under the sun. Cursing wildly at me for suggesting that spot. He just lost it. Which he had never done before.”
Olivia made a mental note of the incident at the time after her partner had apologised.
“I wanted to believe his apology, and I sort of did, but it didn’t go away,” she added.
Joanne Barnes, CEO of Nexus NI, told Belfast Live that victims will “quite often minimise other people’s behaviour”.
“Lovebombing at the start of a relationship is common in coercive control, because it’s how you initially win people’s trust. If you then don’t conform to their way of functioning, then that is when the abusive elements will come out”.
A string of further incidents occurred in Olivia’s relationship where he partner verbally lashed out against her. On one occasion, she claims he cursed at her while saying she needed to get her roots coloured. Another, in which he ‘mocked her’ at a restaurant with friends.
“It was constant little digs, until such a point that I really began to doubt who I was, and that I was good enough for someone,” she added.
Hurtful insults are commonplace in a coercively controlled relationship, but alongside this can be apologies from the perpetrator that can appear genuine.
“Apologies hugely helped, and I really believed I loved him,” she said.
“He painted himself as this victim, someone who was quite wounded and had been really hurt in his last relationship.
“Having empathy and being empathetic is a great gift, but it also left me very vulnerable.”
Olivia can still vividly remember the night the abuse she faced turned from emotional to physical.
“I got a knock on the door and it was him,” she recalled.
“He asked me why I was home late, to which I explained I was leaving a friend home from a class of ours.”
READ MORE: Pictured: Abuser who pushed partner into mirror then threw her down stairsREAD MORE: Pictured: Violent thug David Carson who broke ex-wife’s jaw outside a primary school
After both sitting down with a glass of wine on opposite sides of the room, her partner tapped beside him, mimicking Olivia to come over, which she did not.
“I didn’t feel safe,” Olivia added. “And when I raised my glass of wine to have a drink, he came over and belted me in the face, with the glass at my mouth. The wine went up my nose, and into my eyes and hair. And I just sat there, completely stunned. He ran out straight afterwards.”
The two went to a private therapeutic course together afterwards, with Olivia still not considering ending the relationship.
“It’s very hard to imagine why I didn’t end it, but my mother died during the relationship and he stepped in like a knight in shining armour, when I had no one else there,” she said.
However, eventually her partner gave her no other choice after becoming violent again.
On the drive home after a row, Olivia said he began to “drive madly” after refusing to go back to his house, instead requesting to be dropped off at her own.
“When I went to get out of the car, he drove off with just my two feet hanging out and the door open,” she said. “He sped up and I literally rolled out of the car, onto the pavement. And he drove off.
“I ran home, terrified. He had put my life at risk.”
Olivia never reported the abuse. Both her and her abusive partner had children, and she was worried how anything passed between the two could impact them. It was only after speaking to a friend that she realised she was not responsible for how the choices of her partner may impact his children.
“It was hard to accept this, but it was letting go of the thought that enabled me to leave”, she said.
Progress made on tackling coercive control has become ‘utterly stagnant’
In 2010, David Challen’s mother, Sally, killed his father with a hammer in their home in Surrey, England. She was initially convicted of murder and jailed for life. However, her conviction was later squashed after it was proved Sally was coercively controlled in their relationship, which became a criminal offence in England and Wales in 2015. She was abused for decades in the relationship, and David fought relentlessly for her case to be changed. Her plea was accepted, and she was freed after the judge said her partner controlled, isolated and humiliated her.
David told Belfast Live about his mother’s gradual lack of sense of self, similar to Olivia’s experience.
He said: “It can happen as a slow, gradual erosion. Recoil from life, staying always with your abuser, and you don’t leave them because you’re taught to stay confined.
“You’re sold a lie where your abuser is the only person who truly understands you, and they start to build a world in which he is the centre, and nothing exists outside of it.
“It creates a vacuum where there is no sense of self. Your only thought process is how your abuser may think. There is no you, but instead a life of worrying and perpetually walking on eggshells.”
David has been a domestic abuse campaigner for over ten years and has continued to be vocal on the lack of progress made to tackle coercive control, which he argues has become “utterly stagnant” due to a lack of “appetite”.
He said: “Coercive control is the foundation of domestic abuse, and if you’re going to recognise that then you need to invest heavily to ensure all agencies are trained on it.
“We’ve had coercive control in law for ten years now, but it still hasn’t made its way into the public consciousness.
“There’s a lack of appetite in education to give the resources for people to truly understand this, and a lack of appetite in government to take it on as a serious issue. Our communities are broken, especially through austerity, of successive governments, and governments that aren’t even functioning, which puts development on the backburner”.
The Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended for more than nine years since its creation in 1998. Suspensions have lasted from 2002 to 2007, 2017 to 2020, and most recently in 2022.
Suspension means its committees cannot conduct business, pass legislation or hold office. Coercive control was only made an offence in Northern Ireland in 2022, seven years after it came into effect in England and Wales.
David also admits that it can be difficult to convict someone for coercive control but puts that down to the justice system being “ill-equipped”.
He continued: “It can be very difficult, because you’re relying on lawyers and a justice system that are ill-equipped to tackle these cases because they have a fundamental misunderstanding of what coercive control is. Juries who do sit on these trials may even struggle to understand the concept of consent.
“The words coercive control is not as emotionally arresting as something like the word rape, or physical violence. It can turn into a ‘he said’, ‘she said’, and a victim blame game. Which makes it so important to get it out to the public, that many of the lives we have been living have been coercively controlled.”
David thinks that it’s up to the general public to bring true change to our understanding of coercive control.
“We can’t wait for our government to do the right thing. Change comes from people who want to see it and enact it, and that comes from people with lived experiences”, he said.
“There are so many brave people who speak out, and they are the basis of our understanding and learning to help avoid the repeated act of this abuse.
“It’s giving someone the confidence to see a survivor’s story, and for them to see themselves if they are experiencing something similar.”
Happily married for nearly 20 years
As of July 2024, there are over 6,000 PSNI officers trained in understanding and spotting coercive control, with officers learning from case studies and footage of domestic abuse incidents to better understand and identify controlling behaviour in practice.
David continues to empower other victims to come out with their story, having just released his own memoir detailing the years of abuse his family faced at the hands of his father, and the road to justice he faced with his mother.
Both Olivia and her abusive partner remained sparingly in touch after she decided to end the relationship, but she eventually cut all ties, and they have not seen each other since.
Years later, she met up again with her childhood sweetheart and married shortly after. They have been happily together for nearly 20 years.
For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.
