I had packed very quickly many times before, so I guess I was on autopilot. I grabbed my wash bag, a few toys and a handful of clothes. At some point I slammed the suitcases shut and explained, calmly, that we were going away, just for a few nights, and that it would be fun to my two young sons. It would be OK, I said, but, not for the first time, I wasn’t sure. Mostly, I couldn’t believe that I was here again.
The three of us were going into hiding upon hearing the news that my youngest boy’s dad, Sebastian Swamy, was out of prison, just a few months after he was jailed. He had been sentenced in January to three years and four months after pleading guilty to GBH – the resulting charge of his final attack on me in our home. In July 2017, Sebastian, 40, had beaten me so brutally that he punctured my lung and fractured my neck. I am now permanently disabled. I’d been reassured that he would serve at least 20 months yet, due to errors in the justice system, six months later he is already out, living his life, while I am left afraid.
I’d fallen in love with Sebastian in the summer of 2014, when we were introduced via a mutual acquaintance. To Sebastian I was described as a successful, hard-working single mum, almost 40 and thriving (I was). In turn he was, so I was told, a driven career-guy living in Ascot, Berkshire; someone who had himself together and was looking for love.
And it worked. We fell hard for each other. He seemed to have all the same interests as me and was self-sufficient and kind to my son, who was seven at the time. Our relationship moved fast; we were older, we knew what we wanted. I wasn’t fazed when I found out that he was in debt – in fact, I just wanted to help him. By October 2014, we were married and living in my apartment.
It was then that Sebastian’s behaviour began to change. He disappeared a lot. He drank constantly. I was horrified to see how much he gambled. He was getting high on cocaine. When I confronted him, he belittled me and, eventually, started to hit me. He convinced me it was my fault, or that I did it to myself and I felt guilty and sorry for him; I wanted to help him. When I fell pregnant with our son, Thomas, he cut back on drinking and began caring for us again. As ever, it didn’t last.
By July 2017 I was a different person under his control and he was nothing short of a monster. In the years we’d been together he’d beaten me so many times I’d grown used to tell friends I’d had work done on my face to explain the bruises. Once he tried to set my flat on fire while I was inside. But, while the police were involved numerous times, I could never follow through with pressing charges. Then, one night when I confronted him for drinking and gambling our son’s savings away, he attacked me – stamping on my spine and chest until I thought that my heart had exploded – took my phone away so I couldn’t call an ambulance and left me for dead.
Sebastian was on the run for six days before he handed himself in, while I was bedridden in hospital. This time I pressed charges, but he denied the charge of GBH with intent. While we awaited the trial, he was allowed out on curfew – meaning he had to be in an agreed address for 12 hours per day, or overnight, essentially – and the same when the May 2018 trial was delayed, and the December 2018 trial after that. He pleaded guilty, in January, after changing his story several times, to a lesser charge of GBH and began serving the 20 months of his custodial sentence.
But just ten weeks later I was informed that his lawyer was appealing the time spent in custody. Apparently the time he spent on “tag” – on his curfew – counted towards this. In fact, every day he spent on tag took half a day off the time he would spend in prison. The appeal was accepted and, as a result, my ex would be out in six months.
That time came around at the end of July. Yet, I wasn’t informed of the date, despite an incomprehensible decision to grant him a travel warrant, allowing him to make his way from home from prison unaccompanied or monitored. The police, who were equally baffled by the parole board’s decision, came to house to tell me. I was forced to go into hiding for two days.
Now, I am anxious and I am angry. Like so many victims, I was told to accept his plea bargain to avoid a trial, and I wasn’t informed or consulted about the licensing arrangement before he was released. There was no communication – I was just left to deal with the very real fear that he would come after us, as so many violent offenders do. This has been happening for decades and victims are left unsupported and ignored by the justice system. Some have been attacked again as a result. I feel compelled to speak out to say that this has to change.
A restraining order is in place to prevent Sebastian from coming near us, and I was granted a no-contact order to prevent him having legal access to our son. But to a man like that, those are just pieces of paper. Ultimately, I do not feel safe and I know millions of others feel equally let down by the misinformation, lack of communication and a system that just does not put victims first – or discards us completely.
I am determined not to give in on this plight. I have recently met with Dame Vera Baird, the victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, whose job it is to try and ensure that victims of violence and abuse are treated fairly by the criminal justice system; that they are heard. She listened to me. But I am far from the only one.
Since the attack I cannot feel my finger tips – so I can’t complete simple tasks like buttoning my children’s clothes or touch their skin – the injuries to my spine mean I can’t sit or stand for long, or join in play time with my kids. I have PTSD, I am registered disabled and I know that my life will never be the same or as it should be again. Still he is working, on early release, and starting again. Where is the justice in that?