Woman who was victim of terrifying hostage ordeal says she’s living in fear after ex-partner’s release
Sadie suffers flashbacks of the worst night of her life whenever she smells petrol.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of abuse some readers may find distressing
The scene she describes sounds like something from a horror film – but it was her reality.
She was held hostage in her own home by her then-husband who had their son held at knifepoint. He had doused her home in fuel, with a lighter in his hand, while their young daughter was asleep in the property.
A decade of coercive control had culminated in this.
Sadie (not her real name) feels let down by police after she’d previously reported her partner’s abuse – and she’s not alone.
Victims of domestic abuse say they’re being failed by a criminal justice system which isn’t working.
Prosecutions for domestic abuse-related crimes are down by 45% since 2015 in England and Wales, while thousands of protective orders – designed to prevent perpetrators from contacting victims – are being breached.
Police and prosecutors are now trying to fix the problem – but can it be resolved?
During her marriage, Sadie’s partner installed cameras in their house to monitor her, locked the family inside the property and regularly turned up unannounced at her work – even hiding in the boot of her car.
“If I went shopping, he would time me,” she says. “I’d have to video call him when going round the supermarket.”
After 10 years of her husband’s controlling behaviour, Sadie found the strength to end their relationship.
He was warned not to come back to the family home after being arrested for harassing her, and then released on bail – but he was undeterred.
One evening, Sadie was sat on the sofa watching TV with her son when she saw her ex approaching the house.
Stood in the door frame, he was armed with weapons and petrol so she called the police.
“When he saw the blue lights, he went absolutely crackers,” she says.
Pic: iStock
Her ex warned that if Sadie had called the emergency services “we’re all going to die tonight”.
“He poured petrol all over the hallway, all the way up the stairs, all the way up the landing,” she says.
“He dragged me and my son into the front bedroom.”
Knife held to boy’s throat
Sadie was screaming, she was petrified. He’d threatened before but it felt different this time.
Hours went by before she tried to escape with her son but her ex grabbed him and held a knife to the boy’s throat.
Stood by the front door, she says police officers pulled her out of the property – but her son was still trapped inside.
In tears, she says: “That’s the guilt I have to live with. I always think that he thinks… I left him.”
The ordeal lasted several more hours before her children were released.
Sadie’s ex was arrested and eventually went to prison for his actions. He was sentenced to just under six years in jail with an indefinite restraining order. But even from prison, he tried to continue to harass her.
Sadie says her ex-partner even hid in the boot of her car during his abusive behaviour. Illustration: Rebecca Hendin
He wrote letters and attempted to call her. Once her address was blocked, he’d write to friends and rang neighbours.
He’s now out of prison on licence and Sadie says she’s living in fear.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be free,” she says. “It’s always in the back of my mind. I’m scared. Especially now he’s released.
“Am I going to bump into him? Is he going to contact? Is he going to contact the kids?”
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Sharp rise in victims seeking criminal justice advice
Sadie says she reported some of her ex-husband’s abuse to the police over the years but she didn’t feel it was taken seriously.
She believes things could have been different if warnings were heeded.
According to data shared exclusively with Sky News, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline recorded a 40% rise in victims seeking advice about the criminal justice system between 2020 and 2023.
The Charity Refuge, which runs the helpline and is the largest specialist domestic violence charity in the UK, says this reflects a weakening sense of survivor trust in the system – as they’re instead turning to help from charities.
At a domestic violence support group meeting, other women share their experiences of domestic abuse.
They all say the system doesn’t work and that they’re penalised. Some have lost their homes with the abuser living in it. Others have had their children taken from them and told they’d made bad relationship choices.
One woman said the trauma of her abuse is in her head “constantly… every second of every day”.
Another woman says she watches out the window at night, even though she knows her ex is in prison.
Police and prosecutors taking new approach
The feeling of never being able to escape their abuse is a familiar one.
Deborah Jones, who runs the charity Resolute, says protective orders are “not worth the paper they’re written on”.
“A molestation order is not going protect a woman from domestic abuse, when they have fled domestic abuse,” she says.
“No piece of paper is going to do that.”
Deborah Jones (R), who runs the charity Resolute, with Sky’s Mollie Malone
Police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) are now launching a “Joint Justice” plan to try and change their approach.
It involves a commitment to better collaboration on evidence from the outset to improve charge and conviction rates, as well as reducing the amount of time cases take to get through the system.
They also want to enforce an earlier and stronger use of protective orders for victims. There are various different types issued by the courts to prevent perpetrators from making contact or harassing their victims. But thousands of them are being breached every year.
Read more:
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The Joint Justice framework wants to provide more consistent support for victims throughout the process – from reporting their abuse to their case in court.
New technology is also being trialled to make it easier for victims.
At West Midlands Police, there is a specialist domestic abuse desk. Calls get triaged there from the main call centre – and the victim can have a phone call with a specialist officer on phone camera technology. That acts as early video evidence, to save repetitive statements and marked police cars turning up at the home.
West Midlands Police has a specialist domestic abuse desk
There were more than two million reported victims of domestic abuse in England and Wales last year. The government says domestic abuse should be treated as a “national priority” crime – the same as terrorism.
‘Problem is too big’
Assistant Met Commissioner Louisa Rolfe, who is the national lead for domestic abuse, says victims aren’t being fully served by police and prosecutors at the moment “because the problem is too big”.
“I so desperately want to improve what we do,” she adds.
“It’s really important that we understand the scale of this. It is more than 10% of emergency calls to policing. It’s more than a third of violent crime. It’s a huge priority for policing.”
Assistant Met Commissioner Louisa Rolfe is the national lead for domestic abuse
Kate Brown, from the CPS, says authorities need to “do better” and she has concerns about the drop in domestic abuse cases in courts as she wants offenders to see “just outcomes” for their crimes.
“We’re prosecutors, we want to see more of these cases,” she adds.
Kate Brown from the CPS
For Sadie, it’s about support and being taken seriously.
“I had 10 years of abuse that nothing was ever done about,” she says.
“People used to say to me, something bad will happen. That will be the only way you’ll ever get out of it. And it did.”
A spokesman for the police force involved in Sadie’s case said: “Nobody in our communities should live in fear of domestic violence.
“We remain steadfastly committed to continuously improving our work in this area. That has included delivering bespoke training for a large proportion of our workforce.”
:: Sadie is a pseudonym to protect her identity
The UK economy showed strong growth in the first three months of the year, according to official figures.
Gross domestic product (GDP) – the standard measure of an economy’s value – grew 0.7% in the first quarter of 2025, the Office for National Statistics said.
The rise is better than expected. An increase of just 0.6% was anticipated by economists polled by the Reuters news agency.
Money blog: Reaction as UK economy grows more than expected
It’s significantly better than the three months previous, in which a slight economic expansion of just 0.1% was reported for the final quarter of 2024.
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The ONS also said there was a small amount of growth last month, as GDP expanded 0.2% in March, which similarly beat expectations.
No growth at all had been forecast for the month.
How did the economy grow?
A large contribution to high GDP growth was an increase in output in the production sector, which rose 1.1%, driven by manufacturing and a 4% increase in water supply, the ONS said.
Also working to push up the GDP figure was 0.7% growth in the biggest part of the UK economy – the services industry.
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‘Here’s the concern with GDP figures’
Wholesale, retail and computer programming services all performed well in the quarter, as did car leasing and advertising, the ONS said.
It shows the economy was resilient, as the country headed into the global trade war sparked by President Trump’s so-called ‘liberation day’ tariff announcement on 2 April.
Welcome political news, for now
The data is welcome news for a government who have identified growing the economy as its number one priority.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is taking the figures as a political win, saying the UK economy has grown faster than the US, Canada, France, Italy and Germany.
“Today’s growth figures show the strength and potential of the UK economy, ” she said.
“Up against a backdrop of global uncertainty, we are making the right choices now in the national interest.”
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Such GDP numbers may not continue into April as businesses and consumers were hit with a raft of bill rises, and Mr Trump’s tariffs fired the starting gun on a global trade war.
Last month, water, energy and council tax bills rose across the country while employers faced higher wage costs from the rise in their national insurance contributions and the minimum wage.
But above-inflation wage growth and fading consumer caution could continue to boost the economy.
UK
Assisted dying law ‘unworkable, unaffordable and naive’ says partnership of UK’s leading social care groups
A partnership of the country’s leading social care and end of life organisations has told Sky News of their deep frustration at being excluded from important discussions around the assisted dying debate – describing the proposed change to the law as “unworkable, unaffordable and naive”.
The Coalition of Frontline Care for People Nearing the End of Life is worried about the impact of introducing assisted dying will have on their three million-strong workforce, which they say is on the frontline for delivering care to terminally ill adults.
The partnership includes The Gold Standards Framework Charity (GSF), National Care Forum (NCF), British Geriatric Society (BGS), Care England (CE) and the Community Hospital Association.
It submitted evidence at the committee stage of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, but was not called to give evidence
Professor Martin Vernon, consultant geriatrician and spokesperson for ethics and law at the British Geriatric Society, told Sky News: “This is a huge problem for us.
“The majority of people this law will impact on are going to be older people with complex needs, and there has been virtually no engagement in the consultation process around this proposed legislation.”
Professor Martin Vernon says the majority affected by the bill will be older with complex needs
Professor Vernon and his coalition colleagues are especially concerned about sick and vulnerable adults being pressured into making choices.
“We then may see, increasingly, older people with life-limiting diagnoses like dementia, like frailty, feeling the need to opt for assisted dying or indeed feeling coerced either by their circumstances or societally,” he added.
“This may place a heavy burden on some individuals to choose assisted dying when, actually, the creation of better alternatives – supportive care, and palliative care to enable them to have a dignified and comfortable last few years of life should be the way to go.”
Caroline Southgate, founder and managing director of home care company Doris Jones, told Sky News there was simply not enough information about the impact assisted dying would have on her staff.
‘The way that the bill is presented doesn’t give us enough information,’ Caroline Southgate says
“I think we are concerned that we don’t have enough clarity about how we would train staff, how we support people if they make that decision,” she said.
“At the moment, the way that the bill is presented doesn’t give us enough information to know how we would deal with those issues.
“If someone chooses this route, all I need to know is what’s my role, where are my boundaries?”
Mrs Southgate is also worried about her staff being accused of coercion. Because of the nature of their work, home carers build up a strong bond with the people they tend to, often seeing them multiple times a day.
And sometimes, they might be the only contact their service users have.
Read more:
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“I think we’ve got lots and lots of experience of being in homes with people, dealing with families, who trust us to look after the person who needs care and support at home,” she added.
“I need to know that we would be insured and protected should a family decide that one of our staff was accused of coercing someone, or the other way around, talking someone out of a situation.
“We really need a lot more information to make that safe for us and to make sure that our staff are really well supported.”
Katy Betz works for Mrs Southgate. She is a trained nurse originally from Germany but has lived and worked as a carer in England for over twenty years.
Kate loves what she does, but echoes the same concerns expressed by her employer: Assisted dying could change the relationship she has with her service users.
Driving along Southend’s seafront, she explains there is little else she and her care colleagues talk about these days.
Katy Betz tells Sky News the debate on assisted dying is all she and her colleagues talk about
“It is important”, she says. “Even within my friendship group, everyone has got a different opinion, a strong opinion actually.
Katy says she needs more detail: “More training, safeguarding – what do we do? Where do we go? Who needs to be informed about the client’s decision?
“You are there to make their life, and their end of life, bearable and as good as possible. I can’t explain how I deal with it, but I think you just have to be born to deal with it.”
Katy is on her way to see John and Brenda Barber for one of their daily visits. Brenda is 85 and John is 90.
John took Brenda on their date to a jive dance in Southend.
He was twenty years old and had just returned from army service in Gibraltar. Brenda was just sixteen.
They have been inseparable ever since.
John’s arthritis makes every day tasks almost impossible, and he says if he did not have a carer like Katy, his life would be intolerable.
Paul Barber said his life would be intolerable without Katy Betz
He says: “It’s becoming increasingly difficult with different parts of my body. My wife and I are together and that’s what we want. We would never want to be separated.”
There’s a pause while he reflects on that thought. “That’s despite the bickering,” he says before breaking into a mischievous laugh.
The bond that is shared between Katy, John and Brenda is clear to see. They are worried that this might change irreversibly if the assisted dying law is passed.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill returns to the House of Commons on Friday, where it will face greater scrutiny.
Earlier this week, two Royal Colleges, Physicians and Psychiatrists, withdrew support for the bill, saying it was “not fit for purpose”.
But campaigners in favour of assisted dying have told Sky News the bill includes more protections and safeguards for all dying people than any other jurisdiction where the choice is legal.
Sarah Wootton, chief executive for Dignity in Dying, said: “MPs voted by a clear majority to progress Kim Leadbeater’s Bill in November because they recognised that the blanket ban on assisted dying is failing dying people and their families.
“Every year, dying people are forced to endure unbearable pain, despite good care, travel overseas to die alone, or take matters into their own hands, often dying violent and lonely deaths without support.
“This Bill – already hailed as the strongest in the world – has been strengthened even further during committee stage, with amendments accepted to involve a range of skilled professionals in every application, specific training requirements around coercion, and that assisted dying can only be discussed within the context of all end of life options.”
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