An evil man cast a shadow over her life... now she has to cope with him getting out of jail
26.02.2023 - 11:17
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
She was loving life. It was 1987 and she had been dazzled by the early 80s New Romantics movement and still embraced it by wearing "frilly white shirts" and clubbing hard in Manchester, sometimes until dawn.
She had a job, a boyfriend, and rented a mid-terraced house. "I was going to pubs and clubs, having fun. I was working. It was a good time. I was going to see bands, I was doing what all 27-year-olds do. It was exciting.
"We would come into Manchester, Friday night, and not go home until Sunday morning- there was all night cafes, we took a change of clothing and got changed at the bus station. We would go to the Ritz, Placemate 7. We'd even gone to a club and been turned away because someone was wearing trainers, so bought a pair of shoes off the next person - that's the sort of thing we were doing."
Her care-free life was to be shattered. "We had been to a party the night before. It was in the morning about, 7.30, 8am, I was asleep. I felt something sharp on my neck. He woke me up." As she says this her bottom lip quivers slightly.
"He broke a window at the back, the pantry window. I hadn't heard that. I had been told he had been watching me (in the days before). He broke in, I did not hear him coming up the stairs. I felt the sharpness to my neck, and woke up to these eyes. At first he said 'have you got any money'. There was some on the dressing table, so I said 'yes, over there, don't hit me'.
"Then he did what he did, with the knife at my throat, and he put a pillow over my face. It felt like he was in the house for hours. I just remember his eyes. He had a black scarf or a balaclava on, and the old fashioned light khaki green jacket. I stayed there for a few minutes. I didn't know what to do. What happened