Behind Closed Doors

This programme contains strong language

and scenes which some viewers may find upsetting from the start.

There is a violent crime that strikes at the very heart

of home and family.

But it's an offence where victims are rarely willing to press charges.

This is awful.

Working with Thames Valley Police for over 12 months, this film

follows three extraordinary women,

from the moment they call the police all the way to trial and beyond.

I can still feel his hands around my throat.

I can still see his face and feel his breath,

taste that metallic taste at the back of your throat from the blood.

They have waived their right to anonymity

to break the wall of silence and fear that surrounds domestic abuse.

Imagine if I did nothing and he did it again to somebody else.

You know? He is a danger to women.

It's April 20th, 2015.

A 999 call comes in to Thames Valley Police.

'Go ahead, caller. You're through to the police.

SHOUTING

'Hello. Is there anyone on the line?'

All the police can hear is shouting.

'I'm getting officers out there straight away.'

The call cuts off after two minutes.

'Female panicking on the phone.'

But the police have tracked the position of the mobile phone,

and officers arrive seven minutes later.

I haven't done anything wrong.

I'm arresting you on suspicion of assault.

-Something's happened here.

-Yeah.

A female's got injured that we can't account for at this time.

There's enough suspicion for me to arrest you on suspicion of assault.

Sabrina managed to call the police and throw the phone under her bed.

She says she's been beaten by her partner, Paul Hopkins,

for over six hours.

Are you happy to give a statement about what's happened today?

I don't want to. I don't know.

I appreciate that you're scared but we've taken him away now.

Paul is arrested

and taken into custody.

This is where he's had me on the bed

and he's smashed my face in.

That's all my blood there.

There's a handprint, where I've tried to drag myself away from him.

There's a few spots of it on the bottom bit there, too.

There's blood all up here, too. Look.

That's all my blood sprayed up the wall.

As you can see, there's spots everywhere really.

Sabrina and Paul have been together for five years.

Paul has been violent before

but this is the worst attack Sabrina has ever suffered.

It started as just a couple of little slaps in the face

and then it just escalated.

He threw that chair on my head

and then he picked up the speaker underneath it,

held it above his head and was going to throw it on my head.

When I screamed at him, "Please, stop. You're going to kill me,"

he said, "I don't care. I don't care cos I hate you."

I've never been so frightened.

I honestly thought I was going to die.

I thought he was going to kill me.

Sorry.

If the police hadn't come when they did, he would have done.

He was still going then.

I can't even begin to explain what it felt like.

It's...almost resigning yourself

to the fact that, this is it, I'm going to die.

I'm going to die.

And then I got to the point while he was beating me,

where it was like, "Please, this next punch,

"just let it be the last one so it does kill me and it stops

"because I won't feel it any more."

SHE SOBS

Because the attack was so violent,

Sabrina's case is immediately referred to the domestic abuse unit

at Thames Valley Police.

My name's Emma. I work for the domestic abuse unit.

I'm just giving you a call to see how you are.

Paul Hopkins is interviewed later the same day by DC Sam Hunter,

an officer specially trained to deal with domestic abuse.

Can you tell me what led up to you being arrested?

She went out to meet a dealer sometime last...

I think it was the night-time cos it was dark.

Obviously, I've lost track of time, for that long,

and came back in that state.

And what state are you talking about when you say...?

Her face was really badly bruised and her nose was bleeding

and it kept continuing to bleed.

What did her eyes look like?

One of them she couldn't see out of.

Did she explain what happened to her?

She just said he gave her a good hiding cos she couldn't pay him.

-Who's he?

-I can't name him.

You're basically saying you know

-who's given her this good hiding, aren't you?

-Yeah.

-And you're not going to tell us?

-I can't.

His defence is that she left to go meet the drug dealer

and, because she couldn't pay him, he's given her a good beating.

But if that's the case

then there would have been blood at least going up the steps,

'cos all the blood is round by the bed area

'and up the walls and there's no blood outside,

'so I think that's very telling.'

Sabrina is obviously saying you did those injuries to her

and she goes on to say,

"The threats started to get worse

"and that you ended up slapping her and punching her."

Did you do that?

-No. I never touched her.

-You never touched her?

Only to cuddle her. But, no, not violently.

They put the cuffs on me

and said, "We're arresting you on suspicion of assault,"

and she screamed at them and as they were leading me down the steps

she was still screaming, "Don't. He hasn't done anything. It's not him."

-Is Paul coming with us?

-Yeah, Paul's coming with you.

Arrested on suspicion of assault by me, 08.40.

Sarge, can that go with him? It's just tobacco.

'Sabrina, we've got an ambulance coming to see you.'

Well, I don't hear her screaming,

saying he's done nothing wrong.

'Can you tell us what's happened yet?'

It is really interesting, and if he goes "not guilty",

this I will insist on being played through the trial,

because it's just so...

Yeah, it's a really good piece of evidence, I think.

The police will give the Crown Prosecution Service their evidence

but they may only be able to charge Paul

if Sabrina is willing to go to court.

Sabrina's already known to the team.

She has a history of retracting her police statements.

The last time was four months ago,

after Paul had allegedly assaulted her.

With domestic abuse, we do get to see the same people

time and time again.

43% of victims will be a repeat victim,

and when I say that, it means they will suffer another crime

within a year of having reported a crime.

They may be being abused by the same partner, time and time again,

and we will work very hard to break that.

The domestic abuse unit don't just deal with physical violence.

A new case of harassment has just come in from a woman

who is fleeing her partner.

Hi, Beverley. It's Charlotte Parker from Thames Valley Police.

Hello. I'm just phoning with a bit of an update for our case.

So Lawrence phoned Helen and when he started bad-mouthing her father,

she decided she was going to call

the police and tell them where he was.

Helen has only been in the Thames Valley area for a few weeks.

She met her partner, Lawrence, ten years ago.

I met him through a friend of ours,

and just the minute that I walked through the door,

I just thought, "Oh." I just knew.

We spent a year getting to know each other.

We had great fun. We'd go out places.

We'd stay in. We'd have meals together.

We spent every single day together.

Lawrence moved in with Helen and her five-year-old son in 2008.

He took on Joseph on like his own.

Nothing was ever a problem.

I lost my mum, he looked after us.

My dad came and stayed with us, you know, because he was in a bad way.

I mean, he really was my rock.

But a few months after they started living together,

Helen realised that Lawrence was becoming more controlling.

It was a gradual kind of...

just a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more.

And, "Oh, my feet are aching. Could you rub my feet?"

And then it would be, "Why are you not rubbing my feet tonight?"

And, "You haven't rubbed my feet so get on with it."

That's when the mental abuse started kicking in, and the verbal abuse.

And then I don't actually remember the very first time that he hit me.

I don't particularly recall what it was that set it off.

I think he backslapped me across the face. Um...

and I think I... I mean, I was just in so much shock,

I just couldn't believe that he'd actually done that to me.

He was so nice 90% of the time,

but so absolutely vile 10% of the time.

When they put my mum's ashes up at the graveyard,

he turned round and punched me in the face

so I couldn't go to that because I had a black eye,

so I had to make an excuse

and say to my dad I couldn't cope with seeing her ashes going.

In January 2015, the violence escalated.

The family were celebrating New Year on the Shetland Islands.

That night, Lawrence viciously attacked Helen.

Her 12-year-old son witnessed the attack

and then managed to get out and run for help.

Lawrence Feek was arrested and remanded in custody.

From prison, Lawrence wrote letters to Helen, begging for forgiveness.

After a week, he was released on bail

and returned to the family home.

He came straight to Lincolnshire

and gave me the "I'm going to a counsellor,

"I'm not going to drink any more,

"I'm going to change, blah-blah-blah,"

and, like an idiot, I believed him...

..so I took him back.

Six weeks ago, Helen decided to leave Lawrence for good.

She's taken her son to the only safe place she knows -

her dad's.

But Lawrence has continued to send her abusive texts,

which she's reported to Thames Valley Police.

Helen's having hundreds of texts and calls a day.

She said she didn't want the contact,

she'd asked him to stop,

and also it was the nature of the content of the contact,

in that he's threatening to harm her, threatening to kill her.

So more offences might happen.

We run the risk of him finding her,

assaulting her again, or worse.

The day after Sabrina's six-hour assault,

her partner, Paul Hopkins,

has been charged with GBH and remanded in custody.

I've never seen such bad bruising.

The extent of Sabrina's injuries

means she's immediately referred to a specialist panel.

Obviously, everything we discuss today is confidential.

Police, social services, schools and charities come together

to protect people who are at the highest risk -

at threat of imminent danger or even death.

Can I just update you that I believe...

Nikkie is an independent advisor for high-risk victims.

She'll support Sabrina to make sure she's safe

and will be there alongside her if the case goes to trial.

-Hiya, all right?

-Yeah.

Sabrina and Paul have been in a relationship for about five years.

Four of those years, he has been quite violent towards her.

But he's also been quite emotionally, mentally

and financially abusive.

-Have you got bruises on your arms?

-Yeah.

Can I have a look?

'Sabrina has reported to the police in the past.

'Unfortunately she hasn't supported police,'

but we've got to remember these people love the perpetrators.

Him not being here's weird, but at the same time, it's not...

-I can't get used to it.

-Mm.

Cos my mind still remembers the nice part of him,

-and then there's the other half of him.

-Mm.

-You know?

-Jekyll and Hyde.

-Yeah.

I suppose, if you like, I'm grieving the loss of the nice him.

Yeah. Yeah, of course you are.

The other thing I wanted to speak to you about was

he's on remand, as you know.

If he's let out on bail, then we're going to have to think about refuge,

or if you've got any family and friends you can go and stay with.

-All right?

-Yeah.

-OK?

-Mm-hm.

If he pleads not guilty, he's going to put you through a trial,

I'm afraid, so that means you're going to have to go to court,

and you're going to have to give evidence in court.

We're possibly talking about six months if it goes to trial.

-Right.

-All right? But I don't want you to start worrying about court,

cos we don't know. All right? We just don't know.

It's five months since Helen's attack in Scotland,

which was so vicious that she is now judged to be at high risk.

Her partner, Lawrence, has pleaded guilty

to what the prosecution described

as "a particularly violent domestic assault",

during which she was hit with a PlayStation console,

chunks of he hair were pulled out,

and the imprint of a shoe was made around her right eye.

The judge fined Lawrence £1,700,

but did not send him to prison.

I'm furious because he's got away

with completely and utterly kicking me to bits.

I mean, he literally...

He could have killed me.

And he's walked away and he's back out on the street.

He's just gone unpunished, completely.

I just... I can't see him ever being brought to justice.

DC Charlotte Parker has been investigating the texts

and voice messages Lawrence has continued to send Helen.

Lawrence has been picked up by police,

but in interview he's made claims which, if they stand up,

could seriously undermine the new harassment case.

You do not have to say anything but it might harm your defence

if you do not mention when questioned

something which you later rely on in court.

Anything you do say may be given in evidence.

-All right? You happy with that?

-Yeah, yeah, I'm happy with that.

-Anything you want me to go over?

-No, that's fine, mate.

Moving on then. So you've been arrested for...

When Lawrence was arrested,

he said that he had been spending time with Helen

over the Easter period last month,

and they'd been going out for family dinners.

As a police officer, we are here to investigate

and it's our obligation to look into that allegation

cos, if we find out that Helen and Lawrence have been meeting up

and having lunches and staying in hotels together,

then it could completely close the case down if it's found to be true.

Lawrence has given police the name of a local pub

where he says he went with Helen.

If Charlotte finds CCTV evidence supporting his claims

then it suggests Helen has not been honest with the police,

and will make it very difficult to get a conviction for harassment.

It's them.

So, at 13:25, they're coming in, all three of them, as a family.

So this is Lawrence coming through the door...

..followed by Joseph and followed by Helen.

Doesn't look like a girl under distress, does it?

There's an element of disappointment that you see that

you're probably not going to get a prosecution,

and you've now got to find out the victim's reasons as to why...

why she's done it.

We don't know until we go and speak to her.

We're going to have to challenge her on what we've found

and see what she's got to say.

When Lawrence was arrested, obviously he's interviewed

-and he gets to give an account as to...

-Yeah.

..what he's got to say about it.

And he says that he came to stay down here.

Yes, he came down here. He told me he was here.

He sent me a picture of him being here.

But did you see him when he was...?

I didn't see him when he was here. He told me he was here.

But did you meet up with him?

No.

OK.

So Lawrence has said that you guys met up

-and I have to check that out.

-Of course.

So we have been today to check it out

and, on the 5th of last month, so Easter Sunday...

I saw him.

I did.

And what did you do?

We went for a meal.

For Joseph.

I saw him.

So why did you guys meet up?

He wanted to give Joseph an Easter present.

But why did you do it?

I don't know.

I don't know, Charlotte.

Because at the moment, we are trying to investigate a harassment

and you've been phoning each other and texting each other

and meeting up for dinners.

I don't know what to say.

Because he gets me.

You tell me about that, then.

Why have you been in contact with him?

Only you can tell me, I don't know how you're feeling,

what you're thinking.

I just don't know, I don't know.

He kept telling me he was going to kill himself.

Um...

I don't know. He's a bit like a drug.

SHE CRIES

I hate him, but I can't...

He's like a drug.

I won't never have any more contact with him ever again.

Helen's contact with Lawrence will make it hard for the police

to pursue a case of harassment.

Whatever happens to the case, Helen is still being supported

by Caron from a local domestic abuse charity.

It's quite common for victims and perpetrators

to carry on meeting each other or get back together

because they are emotionally attached to that person.

But now she has met up with him,

she realises what he was doing

and she realises that it was just another tactic

to try and get her back with him and get his own way again,

and to use her son really as a tool to get to her,

promising him gifts,

and Helen was feeling at quite a low ebb when she met up with him.

So we've got the bully...

Yeah, he shouts, smashes things and sulks.

-And the jailer...

-Yep.

Definitely puts me down. I've got texts that say I'm fat, ugly.

He's threatened to hurt and kill me.

Cries, yes, I've had that.

I've had him say he loves me, I've had him threaten to kill himself.

I've had plenty of that he is going to report me

to social services and the DSS.

Helen had been told that she was stupid,

that she was ugly, that she was no good,

that nobody would believe her, etc,

every day for ten years,

and that is hard for people to understand.

Because, "Why do they go back?"

And they go back because they are really testing the waters,

if you like, so testing if they can manage on their own,

and when they go back they are still hoping

that things are going to change and that things are going to get better.

And maybe this is a bit of a warning sign to the other person

that things need to change.

But the reality is that it doesn't change

and often it gets worse.

In the last year around one in 12 women

have reported being victims of domestic abuse.

But on average, they will endure 50 incidents of abuse

before getting help.

Often, they'll only call 999 when there's an immediate threat to life.

'Police Emergency.'

Hello. I've just had our neighbour come across.

She's complaining that someone in her house

just beat the shit out of her.

OK, we're going to get help to her. What injuries does she have, please?

She could have broken ribs, she says she has trouble breathing.

OK, we are going to get help to you.

-I want to stay on the phone for me, all right?

-OK.

Jemma has been attacked by her ex-boyfriend

who she finished with four months ago.

Dwayne Mason is arrested later the same night

with blood all over his clothes.

This interview is now being recorded

and it may be given in evidence if your case is brought to trial.

Do you understand everything so far?

I came in through my bedroom door

and as I've turned around he's just head-butted me and I fell on my bed.

The blood was just dripping off my face.

And I turned around to him,

obviously not expecting it to carry on,

and from that point it was just a shower of blows, really -

punching me, dragging me, holding my head,

throwing me down on the bed, strangling me.

It was like he was waiting for me to lose consciousness

and when I come round, would carry on.

Jemma only had a brief relationship with Dwayne.

Since she broke up with him,

he's been harassing her with phone calls and texts,

and turning up at her house at all hours.

OK, this interview is now being recorded.

What happened in the bedroom, Dwayne?

What did you do to Jemma in the bedroom?

Jemma remembers that you just kept punching her and punching her.

And then you were strangling her, pinning her down,

strangling her so she couldn't breathe.

And she was fighting for her life

because she thought she was going to die.

He's crying now, yeah.

Are you so distressed because you do care about her and she's injured?

Or so distressed because you caused those injuries?

HE SOBS

Her injuries, she had some serious cuts to her face,

I understand she had broken ribs, a punctured lung.

How is she mentally, physically, how is she at the moment?

She's been reasonably good.

She's found it really difficult at first,

but I'm going to touch base with her today and see how she is.

What else did we get in respect of connecting him to her?

Well, there was clothing with blood on it, there was an earring

-with blood on it as well.

-Yeah, can I ask about that?

-They took the earring from him.

-He was wearing that at the time?

-Yeah.

Cos that will be a really compelling piece of evidence

which will tie him...

Cos at one point she describes him having her blood all over his face.

Yeah, OK. And then as far as her wanting to go to court,

how does she feel about that?

-She's sort of on board at the moment, yeah.

-Excellent.

What I'm really pleased about is the fact that she's going to make

a very good witness.

And he's got a lot of questions to answer.

He has, and he's been on the radar for a long time

with different women, but it's always been the same,

that they've always been

-too frightened to do much about it, so...

-Yeah.

It's always a great thing when victims can say,

"I've had enough, yeah, I'm going to make a stand

"and I'm not going to tolerate you doing this to me any more."

Very often people who have been in abusive relationships,

the nature of the relationship

is that they're always blamed for the bad things that happen,

and they feel very responsible very often for what's happened.

It is very hard for them to talk to the police,

or other agencies, and to take prosecutions forward.

Dewayne Mason is remanded in custody and pleads not guilty.

Jemma is prepared to go to court, but the trial may be months away.

The police want her to record her Victim Personal Statement, or VPS,

while events are still fresh in her mind.

I've got constant missed calls, threatening messages.

I think yesterday we topped up 190-plus calls,

and it would go on to messages.

He messages me, "You don't want to be with me, get ready for hell.

"I will go to your work, your college, your house,

"just to make scenes.

"I will slit your tyres every night, poison your dogs.

"You think you can leave me? You leave me, someone leaves you.

"How about that? Yeah, I'm sick - so what?"

It's three months on from Sabrina's six-hour beating.

Her partner Paul is still on remand and has pleaded not guilty to GBH.

She too is prepared to go to court,

and although the jury will be shown photographs of her injuries,

she must also complete her personal statement.

I can remember that he smashed me in the nose.

It was bleeding that bad

that it wasn't running out of my nose quick enough,

and I can remember him strangling me on the bed

and coughing and it going in his face.

That's the bit I can't get out of my head.

I had bruising to the brain,

cut eyebrow where he had head-butted me,

and then obviously the severe bruising to the neck.

When he was stamping on me,

the only reason they think I didn't end up with internal bleeding

or more damage to me was because he wasn't wearing shoes.

-He was bare-footed?

-Yeah.

On that night he beat me naked

and he had literally beat me to a pulp.

I'm not sleeping properly, and I don't eat properly.

He basically lies, cheats, manipulates,

you know, abuses and effectively beats up, just to get his own way.

And he never takes responsibility for anything,

that's what shows...more and more,

he thinks he can just do what he wants.

Because I have been under the impression from him

that people don't really give a shit anymore, you know,

people just keep themselves to themselves, they don't get involved

in other people's arguments, it made me think there

was...there is no help out there, nobody cares, nobody wants to know.

But that's not how it is at all, I have not found one person

that's gone, "Well, you probably deserved it."

I found myself looking at his pictures and getting angry

and thinking, "Why, why, why would you do this?

"Why would you tear something apart that could have been so nice,

"so wonderful, so good? Why, why did you do that to me?

"Why did you do that to us?

"Why did you tear my heart out

"and why, in turn, are you tearing yours out?

"Can't you see any of this?"

And then I get angry, then I cry, then I stop crying

and get angry again.

It's all a bit strange, and then I have a fag and calm down!

But there's been a set-back with the case.

The Crown Prosecution Service feel they will not successfully

get a conviction for Grievous Bodily Harm

and are looking to reduce the charge to Actual Bodily Harm.

Unfortunately, her injuries don't reflect a GBH.

It has to be either a breaking of the skin, like a stab wound

or skull fractures, or broken arms and legs and it's not any of that.

She had this awful beating and she looks horrendous,

yet she is very lucky and she only really had a fractured rib.

It always amazes me that somebody can be beaten senseless and because

they don't have really serious injuries, it can still be an ABH.

I do wonder about that sometimes.

But the CPS lady ensures me

that it's the worst case of ABH she's ever seen

and she's put that all over the file and with our VPS from Sabrina,

we hope that he will be able to get the maximum penalty for an ABH.

It's three and a half months since Helen and her son fled to her dad's.

Because she met up with Lawrence,

the harassment charge against him has been dropped.

Helen is still trying to keep away from him

but he is persistently phoning, texting

and contacting her on social media, so the police have issued her

with a 24-hour panic alarm and her address is flagged as top priority.

He's very, very angry with me.

Once he flips, he can't control himself.

So, you know, there would be no reason for him to be able to

control himself, you know, if he saw me or if he came looking for me.

To protect herself and her son,

she's applied for a non-molestation order, forbidding Lawrence

from having any contact with her via text, phone or social media.

But Lawrence ignores the order and is arrested a week later.

Can you tell us why Lawrence is with us, please?

Yes, so at 6 o'clock this morning,

he was arrested on suspicion of harassment and threats to kill.

Lawrence has sent in excess of nine voicemails and several e-mails

to his ex-partner which are unwanted and are of a threatening nature.

-'Saved messages.

-You're fucked, you dirty fucking skank.

'Wait until I get hold of ya, cos when I get hold of ya,

'I'm going to beat you inside out.

'I'm going to come and get you, I'm going to fucking eat you.

'I'm going to fucking smash the fucking living daylights out of you.'

So based on the information the officer's passed to me,

your detention's authorised at this police station,

for the purpose of securing and preserving evidence

and to obtain any further evidence by questioning.

Do you understand that?

Gentlemen, would you mind taking Mr Feek to cell number four, please?

Shoes off outside.

'When I get ya, I'm going to rip your fucking insides clean out.

'I'm going to make you eat them. You're fucked.

'You dirty little skanky fucking whore.

-'I'm going to beat you like a dirty little

-BLEEP

-that you are.

'You're fucked. I'm coming to fucking get you.'

It makes my stomach turn when he says things like that.

I'm used to him saying those things and then me actually being attacked.

Because he left me the voicemail messages, he's going to be

really cross with himself for slipping up like that.

If he gets bailed this time, he will still torment me but this

time it would be worse so I would be looking badly over my shoulder.

I would be very, very concerned about mine and Joseph's safety.

I don't understand because all I ever done was love him...

..and I can't get in my head, I don't understand why you would want

to hurt somebody...that's loved you.

Not ever... Not done you any wrong.

I didn't do him any wrong. And yet he still hurt me.

I just don't get it.

After a night in the cell,

Lawrence is taken to the local magistrates' court.

As a police officer, we'd like to keep people locked up

because it helps us keep people safe.

He's got a proven track record of breaching conditions or actually

abusing victims, or this particular victim, while he's actually on bail.

It's not that we don't disagree with

the decision by the magistrates' court.

It's their decision to make and they've made it.

Hello, is that Helen?

'I'm just calling from the domestic abuse team.

'It's just to ring you up

'and give you an update from the court result today.

'They've bailed him but we've got some conditions.

'He's not allowed to contact you, and that's directly or indirectly,

'so if he gets somebody else to ring, or contact you...'

For now, Jemma's attacker, Dwayne, is locked up on remand,

but as the court date for Jemma draws nearer, she has to face

the possibility that he may be found not guilty and released.

He won't be able to come near me, will he?

-Or the kids?

-Not to contact you.

That's what I'm more worried about and I want to put that in there,

that I don't want my kids to have to bump into him.

He's done the worst to me but I don't want him

-to use my kids to...

-To get to you.

Jemma's kids weren't in the house when the attack happened,

but they saw their mum in hospital immediately afterwards.

She's asked her specialist support worker, Jacky, to help her

kids know how to keep themselves safe if Dwayne is released.

For a child, no matter what age, to witness domestic violence,

whether they see it first hand or they have gone to bed

and they can hear banging and crashing and screaming and arguing,

they don't know what they are going to wake up to in the morning.

So I've spoken to your mum.

Hopefully what happens is that we will apply for a restraining

order which means he won't be allowed to contact you or

come anywhere near the property, OK?

If a restraining order isn't made, this is why I'm going to do

a little bit of safety planning with you now so you know what to

do in case you bump into him, in case any trouble starts.

So, you have a mobile phone?

Yeah, but it doesn't really work.

It does work, you just don't charge it.

No, I can't ring people.

We can... If he gets out of jail, we can put some credit on there, yeah?

We make sure whenever you are not here, you have credit on your phone.

So if you've got a phone, if you're worried or you're

scared, you can always phone the police.

That's what they're for. And you know what number to ring?

-999.

-Correct, well done, top of the class.

Say he approached you and you felt that you couldn't call the police

because it might cause more harm, phone your mum,

or phone a friend or phone anybody and use a code word.

I think that because you're an Arsenal fan, if you phoned up

a friend or anybody and said, "I now support Spurs," I reckon

they're going to know that's not true and you need some help.

So they can just say, "OK, where are you?"

And then they can call the police for you,

if they need to, or come and find you.

OK, so, lots of safety planning has been done in the house,

we've done the postbox, the fence, the locks.

If anybody knocks on the door, don't just open the door,

look through the safety hole first.

If he did come to the property and he did get in, the best thing

to do is find a room where you can lock yourself in. Is there a room?

-Toilet.

-Toilet? Toilet's very good.

Then you run into the toilet, you lock the door and you phone 999.

All right? OK? Is that fine?

Have I waffled on enough?

Yeah.

I reckon so!

You can go and play now.

Thank you for your time, young man. Awfully kind.

Lawrence has been released from police custody.

Helen has decided it is time to clear out the house

she shared with Lawrence in Lincolnshire.

She's going back with her dad, a family friend and her son.

It's going to be a fresh start for me and Joseph,

and it also shows to Joseph I'm serious - I'm not going back.

He's been through a lot, he's seen a lot,

and the other week he said to me, "It's my fault."

And I said, "No, no, no.

"No way in this world, Joseph, would that ever be your fault.

"It's his fault."

She has no idea where Lawrence is or whether he'll be at the house.

I'm nervous that someone might turn up or anything like that.

I'm very, very nervous.

I'm glad it's for the last time.

-OK.

-Is it everything to go?

-Everything to go.

SHE SOBS

This is awful.

SHE SIGHS

OK, better get on.

It's really silly. It's the silly little things

that we...picked up and collected together.

And it's just terrible.

As her dad, I feel gutted.

You don't bring them in this life to finish up like this, do you?

'All these years she'd been telling me everything's wonderful,

'great time, having a good time, everything's fine.'

They looked very happy together, but you never know what happens

behind closed doors, that old saying.

You never know, do you?

You see how nice it is in here, the good life they had...

and behind the scenes, terribly sour.

It was hard, when you walk in and you think about good memories,

bad memories...

But this really feels like closure now, and I'm actually feeling

really happy about driving away from here now, and that being

the end of it, cos that will be the end of any of my ties here.

And it feels really, really good to know that I'm actually gone.

I'm very excited.

I'm really excited.

Six months after she was assaulted,

Jemma has to go to defend her allegations against Dewayne Mason

and take her place in the witness box.

The statement she originally gave to the police is played in court.

'Obviously you realise the importance of telling the truth.

'If you could tell me in as much detail as possible

'exactly what happened.

'I was woken up by banging, just banging on the door,

'hammering the door, shouting, hammering the door.

'As I've got into my bedroom, I've turned around and he just headbutted me.

'He's just punched me.

'He was dragging me around the room.

'He just wouldn't stop, really.

'The room was covered in blood.

'I can remember thinking, in my head,

'like, "He's going to kill me." '

Jemma spends a full day being cross-examined.

The defence case now begins

and is expected to last for the next three days.

I feel angry that he's made me have to go through all that.

It was part of the evidence that was our conversation on a phone,

and they had what I had sent to him, but not what he had sent to me,

so the defence were kind of just making it up as they went along.

"Oh, well, he must have said something like this to you."

And I was saying to them, "That's not true."

So when they went on lunch, luckily, I'd kept the message on my phone

and I gave it to the police, and they copied the message off my phone

and showed, so you could see, obviously, both sides of it. Erm...

But I just think, "Imagine if I had deleted that."

It's really hard, knowing you're telling the truth

and you're being told that you're lying.

KNOCK ON DOOR

KNOCK ON DOOR

A month after Helen was granted a non-molestation order,

Lawrence Feek is arrested for breaching it for the second time.

OK, they're going to charge you with three counts of breaching

a non-molestation order, and by virtue of that breach

you're also in breach of your court bail conditions.

OK, if I could invite you to sign.

It's no admission of guilt, it's just to acknowledge those charges

-and relaying the information for the breach of court bail.

-HE SIGNS

Thank you.

Are you OK?

-Am I all right?

-Mm-hm.

Do I look all right?

You were staring at me. Are you OK?

Is that against the law?

No. I'm just wondering if you're OK.

-I don't even need to talk to you. Don't speak to me.

-OK.

OK, cos of the nature of...the fact you've breached your court bail conditions,

I have no choice but to put you before the court first thing tomorrow morning.

In interview, he claims he has seen Helen yet again.

The phone rang and it was Lawrence, and he was sobbing,

I mean, really crying.

I can't even explain how badly he was crying.

He sounded awful.

And he said that he was going to hand himself in

and he'd booked himself into the Travelodge in Slough.

The next minute, we're in Wycombe District Council offices

and he's...he's saying, "I'm homeless. Can you house me?

"I've got nowhere to sleep. I'm going to be on the streets."

And I'm thinking, "What?"

Like, "What's going on?

"Because you was meant to be handing yourself in.

"Now, all of a sudden, we're doing housing."

I was thinking, "Oh, my God."

And I started to panic.

And then he looked at me

and he said to me, "You are a cold-hearted, horrible bitch."

He said, "Look at you. There's not even an emotion in you."

He said, "You really don't care."

He said, "You don't care. You've not even shed a tear."

And then I realised, at that very moment...

Because there was no emotion.

I was...sat there like I am now.

No emotion whatsoever.

And I thought, "That's because I don't love you."

And I really don't.

Helen rang the police immediately and told them where Lawrence was.

Today, Lawrence is at the Magistrates' Court

facing three counts of breaching the non-molestation order.

Yet again, Helen is waiting to hear

whether this time he will be remanded in custody.

And we literally just got the update through about ten minutes ago.

One of my team is going to be on the phone to her, if they're not

physically on the phone to her in the office at the moment,

and they've let him out again.

No, I'm not, that's why I wanted to ring you.

Yeah, that wasn't quite what I said. I went, "Oh, for fuck's sake!"

You know, you sit there for hours and hours and hours

and, at ten past four on a Friday afternoon,

you get the phone call that says,

"Oh, no, the court's released him. Same conditions as before."

And you kind of go, "Hang on a minute, the conditions that he's just breached?"

The only positive thing, at the moment, I can take from this,

is that they've still gone with the Lincolnshire bail address...

So he should have left court and left the area

because one of his conditions is not to be in Berkshire.

I'm going to try and get somebody to go round this evening

and have that conversation and check that she's OK...

and, more importantly, check that he isn't there.

Come on, Dad, they've bailed him

-and they don't know if he's still in the area or not.

-That...

Hannah's just told me that.

So just wait a minute because I've got to phone her back.

Where?

Is he free... literally free right this second?

Where is...? Did somebody pick him up or is he just...?

How...?

'I don't know what planet they're on.'

It seems that the more charges you get,

the more lenient the courts get.

You would have thought at least they would have tagged him,

so they could find out where he was at any time.

Right? You would have thought that because he's an imminent danger,

they'd have escorted him to the station

and made sure he bought his ticket and he got on the train.

And then told someone at the other end to check him getting off.

They've now put you at risk again.

-The judge...

-The judge has.

-..has put you at risk.

Is he... You know, I'm trying to be sensible here. Right?

And be nice, but I'm saying to you, as your dad,

he's put you at risk, the judge has put you at risk now.

It makes a mockery of the whole justice system, doesn't it?

It's taken Sabrina's case almost six months to come to court.

Today, she will see Paul Hopkins for the first time since the attack.

-How are you feeling, then?

-Strange. Bit of a weird mix of emotions.

Like I said, I'm happy that today has come, he's going

to get what's due, but at the same time I do hope he's OK.

I'll be sad to see him go down for any length of time,

but at the same time I'll be pleased as well,

and that's the bit I can't get my head round.

Why would I be sad after what he did to me?

I don't know what to expect in the way of what he feels, you know.

Does he feel guilty, is he just going guilty

because he thinks he'll get a lighter sentence or what?

I just don't know.

Paul has just pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of ABH.

So Sabrina will no longer have to face cross-examination.

But she wants to see him being sentenced.

The maximum term for ABH is five years.

Today just feels like the pinnacle day.

It feels like the day everything could change.

This day sort of...

..hinders or helps the rest of my life.

-Sabrina, what happened?

-My world turned upside down is what happened.

I don't think Sabrina realised quite when she saw him

how she was going to react and... erm...

-I didn't expect to still love him!

-There was a different man sat there, really.

It was the man who... Before...

Before he'd beaten the crap out of her,

it was the man she probably fell in love with that was sat there,

and I suppose she wasn't really prepared for that.

I thought I was going to hate him, and I don't, I still love him.

It's not, though!

SABRINA SOBS

It's a very destructive feeling. Anger is a very destructive emotion.

He got two years, so you serve usually half of that, so a year.

He's served ten months already, so he's got two months left of his sentence

for this and then he's got nine weeks added on for the suspended.

'When the judge said that Sabrina

'was lucky to come out of the flat alive,'

I thought she's going to throw the book at him.

And the injuries that she sustained went on,

and you know, the weapons that was used, she went into great detail

about that, so...you know, he's received two years.

I walked in there with my chin in the air,

determined to send him down for as long as I possibly could.

And then I saw them lead him out. And I saw him sat there.

Then I looked at him and he looked at me.

And our eyes met and I could see it in his face. I could see it.

When his solicitor and his barrister turned round

and said that he was ashamed of himself, I could see that he was.

He went to pieces just like I did.

And he's being the man that I remember.

And all I wanted to do was run over to him and wrap my arms round him

and tell him, "It's OK, I'll be here.

"I'll be here when you come out. We can try again." And I don't...

I don't know. I don't know.

I felt anxious, to be honest.

I keep going over and over in my head, did it go well? Did it not?

You know. I feel like I have to remind myself to breathe.

And the jury are now out,

so we're just waiting for the phone call to see what happens.

The anxiety's built up through the week.

So...at least it will be over either way now.

Hopefully he doesn't get off and do it again.

You know, that's more what this was about, to be honest.

Imagine if I did nothing and he did it again to somebody else. You know.

He is a danger to women, totally.

Mentally and physically, he is a danger to women.

PHONE RINGS

Hello. Jemma?

Hello.

-Are you ready for this?

-Yeah.

Section 18, GBH with intent,

guilty.

Oh, my God.

Thank God. Yeah, I know!

Thank you, Julia, seriously, thank you so much.

I'm stood out here by the buses, I hope none come along!

Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Just stay there and pour yourself a glass of something.

So...we got the right result at the end of the day.

-All right?

-Thank you, Julia.

All right, bye.

He got it.

I can't believe he's got it.

He's going to be locked up for a very long time.

He's gone.

-Who's gone? Dewayne?

-Dewayne, yeah.

-Yeah!

-They said he's guilty.

-Why are you crying?

-Because Mummy's just happy.

I was worried and then when it come through...

-It's been hard, hasn't it?

-Yeah.

Do you want some? Tea up.