Love was the last thing on single-mum Siobhan Haley’s mind when 25 year old Nathan Perks contacted her on Facebook to ask her on a date. She swiftly brushed him off, but Perks whom she met at a friend’s house party five years earlier was not disheartened and continued to ask her out until finally, two weeks later, she agreed to let him take her out to dinner.
Siobhan, from Cornwall was swooned by ‘charming’ Perks and eventually they moved in together.
But shortly afterwards he became a brute - disappearing for days at a time, returning home drunk and beating Siobhan black and blue, screaming ‘you’re a fat slag.' as he smacked her head against the wall. In a sick game, he would heat up the iron before chasing Siobhan around the flat, laughing as he threatened to ‘burn her skin off’. He even urinated on her side of the bed, so that she was forced to sleep on the cold floor without a duvet or blanket.
Perks soon began to control her friendships, flying into rage if she asked to see her friends. He controlled her diet, telling her she was ‘already fat’ as he threw plate after plate of food at the floor, smashing it to bits and laughing ‘I don’t want you to get any fatter’.
Perks also began to use her like a ragdoll, dragging her from room to room and smashing her head into hard surfaces. He would pinch, bite, punch and kick her until her legs and stomach were black and blue, as her baby cried from his cot in the next room.
He soon began to hold Siobhan prisoner in the flat for long days whilst he went out, and even confiscated her mobile phone so that she could not call for help.
But he was arrested Siobhan used an iPad to call her best friend. Perks was later jailed for two years at Truro Crown Court, for causing actual bodily harm.
After the case Siobhan agreed to give Cavendish Press harrowing details of her ordeal and her story featured in Pick-Me-Up magazine.
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