What Are You Doing To Mummy?

As she frantically fought for her life against her attacker, mum-of-three Toni Bennett, 30, heard a little voice…

- Lucy Needham & Louise Baty

My mum Susan, 60, sighed as I poured out my heart. It was October 2015 and I’d had another row with my partner, Karl Hughes. Mum had heard it all before over the past 14 years.

‘Your dad and I think you’d be better off without him,’ she said.

I knew she was right. When we’d got together as teenagers, Karl had made me laugh, but he was 29 now and I realised his jokes hid a dark side.

Recently, I’d found empty vodka bottles hidden around our home in Dudley, West Midlands. He was aggressive, argumentative and barely lifted a finger with our children Joshua, then nine, Alexander, four, and Jessica, two.

He drifted in and out of jobs, leaving me to work long hours at a nursery to pay the bills. He was possessive, too.

‘You’re cheating aren’t you?’ he’d scream, if he saw me glance innocently at another man.

I spent my life walking on eggshells and over the years, I’d asked him to leave numerous times, but he always wheedled his way back in.

A month later, on 20 November 2015, Karl handed me a letter from the council. Every week, I gave him my wage for the rent but the letter said we owed money and, with horror, I realised he’d been secretly blowing our rent money on scratch cards. If we didn’t pay up, we’d be evicted.

‘I can’t do this any more,’ I sobbed, asking him to go.

‘You don’t mean it,’ he raged. This time I really did. When he went, the following morning, I asked for his house key. But later, when I went to collect Joshua from his after-school karate class, Karl was waiting. ‘Can I get my things?’ he said. I nodded reluctantly. Back at home, I got the kids ready for bed as Karl walked round downstairs.

‘I’m collecting my stuff,’ he called.