‘No one should go through this’

9:16am Friday 4th July 2008

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Emma Bryant suffered years of abuse from her husband.

Today, she waives her right to anonymity to urge others to speak out against their tormentors. She talks to Jim Entwistle.

IAN Bryant subjected his wife to a decade of violent abuse, a campaign of intimidation and physical harm that continued even after their divorce. The unprovoked attacks culminated in him breaking into the former marital home and raping her on the kitchen floor.

It took Emma 18 months - and several more beatings - before she could tell the police of the rape, an attack which left her expecting her third child.

Now 33, she has moved away from her home in Darlington. Emma says it is a chance to focus on raising her young family, something she had longed for since getting married ten years ago.

"I thought I would be trapped for ever, but there is a way out," she says. "I'm not saying it is easy - I still have bad nightmares. But life is good now. It is hard to move on, but it feels like I'm a different person and that I'm finally getting my life back on track."

She may have carved out a new life for herself, but Emma is still haunted by the experiences of being imprisoned in a violent relationship.

"He may have wanted to be in control of me," she says, searching for a reason why Bryant made her life a living hell.

"He would always put me down, telling me I was a bad mother. When somebody tells you bad things like that day in, day out, you end up believing it.

"I would feel weak all the time. I started to think I actually was a bad person. He would say it was my fault that we weren't a family, but I now realise it was purely because of him that we weren't a family."

Where most people could turn to family or friends for support, Bryant had driven a wedge between Emma and those who cared for her.

"He turned me against my friends and family, " she says. "I suddenly realised I had no one in my life apart from this man who was controlling me. If I did manage to go out with friends, it would be ruined because he would either upset me before I went out, or I would be that worried about what he was going to be like when I got home. I had no life, but sometimes in that sort of relationship you don't realise that until afterwards."

The couple split in 2003, but Emma couldn't escape the violence and Bryant began a campaign of fear to erode her already fragile mental state.

Emma says: "At one point he was breaking into my house, moving things about and taking things. I got the locks changed numerous times but still he managed to get in. He was trying to make me insecure so I would take him back.

"One night, a lot of the things that had gone missing suddenly appeared on my bedroom floor. It was all a big game to him. I began to think I was going mad and had to go to hospital."

Worse was to come. In autumn 2005, Bryant launched the attack which would eventually lead to his prison sentence. "He broke into my house and raped me on the kitchen floor. He nearly killed me," she says.

Matters came to a head when Emma was assaulted again, and with bruising from head to foot, her injuries were immediately noticed by the staff at the nursery her children attended. Encouraged to go to the police, she subsequently spoke for the first time of the attacks inflicted upon her.

In the process of police inquiries, detectives asked if any of the attacks had been sexually motivated.

"I never thought they would have enough evidence, or even that they would believe me,"

she says. "I just wasn't strong enough."

But, despite her fears, within a week of turning to the police Bryant was detained. In February this year, he pleaded guilty to rape and began a five-year prison sentence.

Acting Sergeant Steve Smyth of Darlington police was working on the case - one which he says was made even more shocking by the depths to which Bryant stooped in an effort to hide his crimes.

He says: "On one occasion, Emma had reported that she had been attacked by a stranger in the street. It transpired that this was another example of Ian Bryant manipulating his wife to cover up the injuries which he had caused to her. On another occasion, he tried to explain her injuries by saying that she had an epileptic fit. The bruising on Emma was substantial, with injuries to her head, arms, legs, back and breasts. This was certainly not consistent with injuries sustained as a result of even a severe fit, due to the positioning of several of the bruises."

Emma wishes to thank PC Kay Cowan, her new boyfriend Robert Libbey and Darlington Borough Council's domestic violence officer Kate Peacock for their support. "Without them, I wouldn't have got through this," she says. "I'd be happy if my story gives others the confidence to come forward. No one should have to go through this."

* If you are affected by domestic violence, call the English Domestic Violence Helpline on 0808-2000-247 for confidential advice.

Alternatively, visit refuge.org.uk