Beaten for Saying No

Late-night demand for sex

Tired refusal and vicious attack

A plea: don’t let it happen to you...

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I ’d tried everything to sleep. The next morning I was on the early shift. I had to be at the taxi office where I answer the phones by 6am. I needed to be up by 5am, but

I couldn’t sleep. My mind was racing, worrying about my boyfriend’s mood.

Please don’t come home drunk, I prayed.

That afternoon, last July, me and my other half Jamie Bamforth, 27, had gone round to friends for a few drinks, but, knowing I was working the next day, I’d stuck to cola.

But Jamie, a driver at the taxi firm, was off the next day, so he was drinking – and, with booze inside him, he could be spiteful.

Empty beer cans

We’d met five years earlier, in December 2011, through friends. I was looking for work, and he put me in touch with his boss.

‘How about a date?’ he asked a couple of months later.

Jamie made me laugh, seemed really grounded, and was good-looking.

Things moved quickly after that, and we moved in together a couple of months on.

But Jamie changed overnight.

When he was off work, he’d sit around drinking, expecting me to clean up after him.

‘Do you have to leave your empty beer cans on the coffee table?’ I’d ask him.

‘Shut it, you bl**dy nag,’ he’d snap back.

Next thing, he’d apologise, beg my forgiveness. Sometimes there was a bunch of flowers, chocolates, tears…

‘Of course I’ll forgive you,’ I said. ‘I love you.’

And I did. But it started happening more and more.