MY LIFE WITH A MONSTER

Raped and brutalised for 25 years, this woman has been set free after murdering her husband in cold blood

- LAVERN DE VRIES

SHE described it as a living hell, trapped in a nightmare with a man who tormented her every day, controlling and abusing her until she could take no more.

After 25 years of being beaten, pimped out, and terrified for her life, she shot her husband in the back of the neck in front of two of her children – and then buried him with the kids’ help.

In the five years since Daniel Polette’s death, Valérie Bacot has become well known in France. She wrote a bestselling book, Tout le Monde Savait (“everyone knew”), about her trauma and has become a poster child for abused women.

But her suffering wasn’t enough to save her from going on trial for murder and her case made headlines day after day, sparking fierce debate about how the French legal system treats abused women.

Nearly a million people signed a petition for the charges to be dropped against Valérie (40), but prosecutors said she’d planned her husband’s murder because she admitted to trying to poison him earlier that day by crushing pills into his coffee.

After days of harrowing testimony, Valérie was found guilty and sentenced to four years in jail, three of them suspended.

But she was given clemency because of her long history of abuse and won’t spend a day in jail.

For Valérie, the verdict is bittersweet. She didn’t want to be incarcerated of course, but her life is so full of complexity and cruelty that she lives in her own private prison, haunted by memories of abuse and degradation.

And making it worse is the fact her own mother has always been more on Daniel’s side than hers.