Paul C. Brunson: Red Flag (2026) s01e02 Episode Script

1
I've spent most of my adult life
helping people find and keep love,
working at the forefront
of modern dating
to study how we feel about
the partners we choose.
But I know relationships have
a darker side.
How are you doing?
Lovely to meet you.
I'm meeting survivors of
toxic relationships,
hearing their stories
and reliving pivotal moments
to help reveal the red flags
abusers tried to hide.
He just made me think that
he was my only option.
I naively thought, "He's just
a bit insecure in himself."
I felt stuck in that relationship
for so long.
When you're in it, you can't see it.
You cannot see it.
I hid a lot of things away because
I didn't want people to know.
A red flag is a warning sign
and by spotting a red flag,
you not only protect your loved ones,
but you protect yourself.
I'm meeting Jak, who had an intense
six-month relationship
with serial fraudster and rapist
Christopher Harkins,
known as the Tinder Predator.
You just want someone
to make you feel better.
I had no idea how crazy
and dangerous he was.
What memories does this bring back?
I don't have good memories here.
Jak's ordeal will offer an insight
into one of Scotland's most
prolific predators.
His whole persona and mood changed.
And he grabbed my arm
and kind of lifted me
out of the chair.
I was in shock.
Major red flag.
It's incredibly alarming.
What were the hidden red flags
and how did Christopher Harkins
perfect his cruelty?
He asked me for money.
He said his bank account was frozen.
Did you believe him?
Yeah.
Sorry, I'm getting emotional.
Something inside of me
just said, "Run."
Hello! Jak, how are you?
I'm great. How are you?
Really good, really good.
Good to see you. Good to see you.
Well, please, please have a seat.
Thank you.
Can I say, also
..one of my favourite accents.
SHE GASPS
Yay!
I remember reading about your ex.
Do you actually?
These are some of the articles.
What brings me back
was not the actual title,
but his face.
He looks evil in that picture.
Is that when he was arrested?
Yeah. OK.
I remember these headlines.
"Violent rapist who targeted
women on dating apps
"jailed for 12 years."
"Tinder swindler who preyed on
women looking for love,
"as he raped one victim
and conned others
"out of £214,000,
"is jailed for 12 years."
With this being your ex,
I mean, how does it feel
reading these articles?
Every time, it makes my skin crawl.
It's very violating.
It was an art to him.
He was so good at it.
Yes. He knew exactly what to say.
Jak dated Christopher Harkins
in the early stages of
his criminal career.
I want to learn how he treated her
and uncover any red flags that warned
of the prolific fraudster
he would become.
Can you take me to the moment that
Harkins first entered your life?
I was on Tinder
and I came across Harkins
and I thought, "He is a bit of me."
Very handsome, I would say.
He liked holidays,
which I love holidays.
He looked quite sporty.
That's what got me hooked in.
That was it? Yeah.
Obviously knew what he was doing.
Yeah. I swiped and we matched.
OK. So then once you swipe,
who sends the message first?
He sent the message first.
All right.
We were messaging back and forth,
just general chit-chat.
"How are you? What are you up to?
What do you do for work?"
And it was one of the things
Harkins had asked -
"When was your most
recent relationship?"
And I'd opened up to him,
telling him, "Quite recently,
"it was quite traumatic," and that I
was still a little bit heartbroken.
That's so interesting that
he asked you about
Yeah. ..when that break-up was.
So I was very heartbroken.
It was quite serious.
It was going to be my
30th birthday that year,
and we had booked to go away
to New York on holiday,
and it ended very abruptly.
OK. And right there,
when we reflect back,
we can see that was a red flag.
Where you see these abusers target
the most emotionally vulnerable.
And the fact that you
were heartbroken,
what that does is that puts you
into a position
where you're looking for any type of
what you perceive to be love.
Yeah. You're not thinking
of anything negative.
You just want someone
to make you feel better.
Journalist Catriona Stewart
wrote the first article
uncovering Christopher Harkins,
and pursued his case until
he was brought to justice.
I first started writing about
Christopher Harkins in 2019.
I just couldn't believe that
there were so many women
who had been involved
with this man.
And I also just felt furious.
That really made me determined
to tell the story.
He uses dating apps like
a hunting ground.
And he has a very particular type.
All of the women, they've been
clever, they've had good jobs.
He woos them, he charms them.
They would never have known
he is a dangerous,
remorseless predator.
So how long did you chat
back and forth online
before you met in person?
I think it was about two weeks
and we'd arranged a date.
He had arranged everything,
I basically just turned up.
We are in beautiful Glasgow.
We sure are.
This is your city.
This is the stomping ground, yeah.
So this is the street that
I went on my first date
with Chris Harkins.
So he took me to the comedy club,
which is actually just over here.
The comedy club is now
called Bowlarama.
What do you think,
the first time that you saw him?
"Thank God,
he looks like his pictures."
Really? Yeah. You were relieved?
Yeah, he looked very handsome.
I can imagine that
you're now thinking,
"Oh, my goodness. I have a real
person in front of me that I'm"
Would I say "attracted to"?
Yeah, absolutely.
The comedy club was really fun.
We were getting on,
we were chatting.
There were no awkward silences.
And I thought,
"Right, OK, this is great."
What are those first feelings
and emotions that come over you?
Nervous, butterflies.
Thinking, "Too good to be true."
What happens as soon
as the show ends?
He suggested we continue the night
and go to a casino,
which was quite close by.
Chris was winning.
He wouldn't let me spend any money.
I wanted to use my own money,
but he just kept putting cash down
and getting chips,
and he was letting me pick what
numbers to put them on.
Ah, this is very interesting.
It was only his money?
Yeah, only his money.
How much did he win?
I don't know how much,
but it was hundreds
and hundreds and, um
When the night was finished,
he actually
cashed in all his winnings
and he took a chunk of it,
and he put it in my handbag as well
and said, "That's your share."
While you were inside the casino?
Yeah, while we were inside.
What did you think about that?
I thought it was a bit odd,
to be fair.
That was a great first date,
but Jak told me something
peculiar where
Chris placed half of
his winnings in her purse
without even asking her.
And to me, what he was doing
was setting up the fact
that she now owes him.
And to me, that's a red flag.
There's something called
performative generosity. Yes.
Pure generosity is,
"I want to help you."
Performative generosity is,
"How will it look if I help you?"
He could also be trying to
place you in a place of
indebtedness, right,
where now you feel like
you're obligated. Mm-hm.
But you walk away just knowing
it didn't feel right. Yeah.
I wonder what would have happened
if I gave him the money back.
Jak, would you say that
in that early period,
did you feel safe with Harkins?
Yeah. I was happy.
OK. I had no issues.
I feel quite sick when I think about
some of the women being with him,
not knowing what was
coming down the line.
He presents himself as being
very successful, well-educated.
He's none of those things.
He's lying from day one,
but he is so skilled at working out
how to manipulate someone,
and that's really terrifying
to think about.
Jak, who initiated the relationship
becoming exclusive?
Chris did.
Chris was the one who messaged me.
It was early on in,
maybe two months or so,
and he texted me while
I was at work.
What do you do?
It took me a while
to get back to him.
When I did, I texted him back,
"Absolutely, so happy."
I was expecting a nice reply,
something sweet.
And the reply I got was,
"I think we should actually
just be friends."
He had changed his mind. Oh, really?
After two months, Christopher Harkins
has asked Jak to go exclusive
and she's agreed.
But Jak's told me she was shocked
by his response.
I want to try and understand
his game plan.
Take me back to that moment.
Ah, so I was in work.
But when I checked my phone,
I had a message from Chris.
OK. Just saying he thinks that
we should start seeing each other,
like, exclusively.
And I was like, "Oh!
"That's out of the blue,
but I'm happy."
So help me understand,
what was the time
between when he sent you the message
and you responded?
It was a few hours.
As I said, I was at work.
I was busy.
He then came back and said
he's changed his mind
and he thinks we should
actually just be friends,
which was shocking.
How did it feel to have him extend
a committed relationship,
basically offer it to you
and then pull it right back?
I didn't understand
where it was coming from.
It made me feel quite anxious,
which, looking back now,
is humiliating for me,
but in the moment,
you're just a wee bit hurt.
You're like, "Why is he doing this?"
Exclusive, friends.
Make it make sense.
Am I being dumped, like?
And I feel as though I was almost
trying to convince him
to go back, which I ended up doing.
So you almost had to
Convince him. ..convince him
to then commit to you. Yeah.
Even though that's what he had
asked you to begin with. Yep.
And that was all via text?
All via text, yeah.
You know, what he's doing in
that moment is he's creating
this emotional insecurity. Mm-hm.
I'm playing right into his hands.
Yeah.
Unaware.
And this is only two months in?
I think about two months in, yeah.
Still, at this point,
you feel as if this is
..incredible. Yeah, I felt good.
And I was starting to forget
about my heartbreak.
If I had to beg for exclusivity
like Jak had to,
I would have felt entirely confused,
but more importantly,
like it was my fault
simply because of the amount of time
that it took me to respond.
I could see that he was simply
manipulating her,
and to be honest, I would have fallen
victim to the same thing.
Terrifyingly, it is impossible
to know exactly how many women
he's targeted.
In the timeline that I've drawn up,
there's points where he was dating
four women at a time,
so I think it could easily run
into the hundreds.
At that point, did you have
a sexual relationship with? Yes.
Yeah. OK.
Did you feel as if that was bringing
the two of you closer together?
Actually, no.
And when it did happen
..fine, but it didn't happen often.
I thought there was maybe
something wrong with me.
I didn't think there was other
women involved.
I just thought, "Maybe he's just not
too sure about me."
What does that do to you
in the relationship?
Does that make you want to
try harder, work harder?
Yeah, I wanted to almost
..try my best to make it work
and try and just put any
insecurities to the back of my mind.
Did you ever talk about this
to him? No. No, never.
Yeah. I was too embarrassed.
This is a great litmus test
around safety.
If you cannot disclose how you feel,
then you ultimately don't feel safe.
What do you think was pushing you
to just continue?
I think the biggest mistake I made
was jumping into a new situation
while I was still heartbroken
over a previous situation.
I was chasing
..someone else to make me
feel better.
Was there anything about
Harkins' behaviour
early on, at this period,
that caused you alarm?
One of them,
which I vividly remember,
was when we went for dinner.
Conversation was flowing.
I felt really comfortable.
He went to the toilet after
we had finished our meal,
and I shouted the waiter over
and asked if I could pay the bill.
When he came back up,
I was expecting a,
"Thank you so much.
You didn't have to do that."
And instead, I was met
with angry Harkins.
His whole persona and mood changed,
and he grabbed my arm
and kind of lifted me out of
the chair and I thought,
"Oh! No, you did not."
He made me feel very belittled.
"How dare you embarrass me?
"Don't ever do that again."
Was that the first time that he had
physically come after you?
Yeah. First time.
I was in shock.
And at the time,
he wasn't apologetic.
Who does that?
I don't know how I would react.
In my head, I'm thinking,
"What do all these other people
think when they've just saw that?"
And what happens?
I hear from him the next day.
He pays me compliments.
He continues to apologise.
Wants to take me out.
He wants to make up for it.
And stupidly, I agree.
Yeah. So, that - major red flag.
And a lot of researchers call this
the cycle of abuse.
There is the apology
without correction.
And it's incredibly,
incredibly alarming.
So at this point, you are guarded.
There was feelings there,
but I was wary now.
It's clear Jak felt conflicted,
but Christopher Harkins was
showing enough kindness
to make Jak want to stay
in the relationship.
Jak's taking me to his old flat.
How did he behave behind
closed doors?
He lived in a flat with his mum
and his stepdad.
I've not been here since,
so it's been about ten years.
Just looking outside,
I really recognise these streets.
In the bottom left.
Oh, wow, this one right here? Yeah.
Is that it?
I think that might be the one, yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
You know
SHE LAUGHS
It feels weird.
Does it feel? Yeah.
I was going to say,
this is the most quiet
Really, this is the most quiet
I've seen you today.
What memories does this bring back?
I didn't have good memories here.
His bed was here, and the TV was
in front of the bed.
And he had, like, some
chest of drawers and stuff.
OK. That was it, basically.
So all you can really do is like,
sit, lay down on the bed. Yeah.
Watch TV, yeah.
Watch TV. Mm-hm. Yeah.
I remember there was one weekend,
I was in there the full weekend,
and he was in a bad mood.
And we spent, like,
the whole day pretty much
just on our phones,
sitting in silence.
And anytime I said I wanted to
go home, he would, like,
leave some breadcrumbs like,
"Oh, no, just stay." Yeah.
To be in this proximity to someone
who doesn't talk to you
for a full day
Yeah, it's horrible. ..is horrible.
I can feel the energy. Yeah. Mm-hm.
It's crazy.
This exclusive relationship
with Harkins
..does your love for him,
has it increased over the time?
There was feelings there,
but I wasn't falling in love
with him at this point.
But in my head I was thinking,
"Right, I'm not speaking to
anyone else. Focusing on him."
I have spent a lot of time wondering
what motivates Christopher Harkins.
I think he genuinely does really
like the fine things in life,
and he can't provide those
for himself.
And he sees women
who are successful,
who can afford to pay for
everything themselves,
and it makes him angry
and it makes him resentful.
What was the next pivotal moment,
do you think, in your relationship?
I was at work and he had
texted me saying,
"What do you think about going on
holiday together?"
SHE CHUCKLES
He sent me a Booking.com link
to a holiday in Thailand.
It was a hotel.
And I said, "Looks amazing."
He'll pay for the flights
and we'll go halfers on the hotel.
So he wanted you to pay half?
Half of the hotel booking, yeah.
Immediately?
Yes.
It was thousands.
Four months into their relationship,
Christopher Harkins has invited
Jak on a holiday to Thailand
and asked her to pay
thousands of pounds upfront
for a luxury hotel.
And I said, "When are you
thinking about going?"
And he said, "Not until March."
And we're in the summer.
So it's, what, almost a year
in advance?
Yeah, it's Yeah, nine months
or so in advance. OK.
So first thoughts is,
"He thinks we're going to be
together in nine months.
"That's quite nice."
To feel as though he's seeing
a future with me.
And because he sees a future,
you now feel safer. Yeah.
Yeah, I definitely felt a lot safer.
But I was thinking,
"We don't know each other that well,
"and I've got a huge holiday
coming up,
"so I'm going to have to say no."
And I declined.
You declined? Yeah. OK, OK.
What was the response?
He didn't push it.
He almost just left it
and said we could maybe
look at something else
further down the line.
So he's testing you at thousands
and you deny it?
Yep. So I suspect he then tries
to test you at a lower figure.
Yeah. OK.
Which is what?
That holiday to New York
that I was meant to be
going on with my ex,
I'd already paid for it,
so I'd just done a name change,
and my mum stepped in.
She loves New York. OK.
You're in New York with your mum.
And what did he say?
Do you recall it?
He said his favourite shirt was
a white Ralph Lauren shirt,
and they were more expensive
in the UK.
OK. And since I was going to
New York,
can I buy them in bulk
and bring them back for him?
That's an example of
financial boundary testing
..where, in essence,
what he's trying to do is see
how much money he can begin
to extract from you.
And if you connect it
back to the story,
he's been generous to you.
Yeah. Even the first day that
you met. Yeah, exactly.
He gave you a couple hundred
pounds, right?
He would obviously
pay me back for them.
It's not as if he was asking me
to gift him the shirts. Right.
So I was like, "Yeah, that's fine."
Does anything else happen?
Is he messaging you?
Usual chit-chat.
And he responds with,
he's a bit stressed
because one of his
girl best friends has
declared her undying love for him.
And he's considering whether
he wants to date this girl
..which, you can imagine the shock.
"Sorry? We're dating."
And in that moment,
what's your thought?
I felt quite sick, quite anxious.
Almost brought me back
to when he asked
if I wanted to start seeing him,
like, be exclusive
and then took it back.
Yes. It reminded me of that.
And to your point - another red flag.
What he's doing is he's introducing
the possibility of
another relationship.
Most likely made-up, right?
But why is he doing it?
To once again manipulate
your emotions
so that you are more endeared to him.
Yep. Right?
I was thinking, "Oh, my God, like,
"am I going to lose him?
What's going on?"
And you're probably thinking,
"I have to prove myself." Yep.
So you're immediately buying
these shirts. Yeah.
We went into Ralph Lauren.
I found what I thought was
the right shirts.
So I just got my mum to take a
picture of me holding the shirt up,
and I sent it over to him
and he said,
"Yep, that's the ones." And I think
I bought about six of these shirts
to bring back for him.
When you look at this photo
and you think about
the position that you were in,
not knowing,
did you realise how much in harm's
way you were at that moment?
Not at all.
I thought I was doing a nice,
generous thing.
So by the time you return
from New York,
how do you perceive
your relationship?
Crazy as it sounds,
I was excited to see him.
I was excited to give him
the shirts.
It's not crazy. Yeah.
You were being manipulated.
Yeah. When you're in it,
you can't see it.
Did he ever transfer you the money?
No.
No. I did ask.
But how is it that you end up
resolving this friend that
supposedly has fallen
in love with him?
He said she was drunk,
she had been drinking
and he really played it down.
What I'm having such
a hard time understanding
is we now know that he was doing
this to many women. Yeah.
But he lived with his mum. I know.
As much as his family
were welcoming,
we were always just locked
in the bedroom. Mm-hm.
I think when you're in the moment,
you want to just
..think the best of someone,
don't you?
You do, you do. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm a good person so I expect
the same from other people.
And it's hard to think that
people's intentions are bad.
D'you know, do you think the fact
that his mother was here,
he weaponised them at all?
Yeah. Really? Yeah, yeah.
Often, I see what abusers do,
is if they know that there are
other people in the house
Yeah.
..they know there are certain things
they can do because you won't
Yeah. You won't make a fuss.
Like when I questioned them
over the shirts,
which we spoke about,
when I asked for my money back,
that was in there OK.
..I couldn't kick off.
I couldn't do anything,
so I was being respectful
because I was in his house
and his mum was there.
Yes. You really don't
want to be here. No.
SHE LAUGHS
OK, OK.
I don't like the bad energy.
Do you believe that your behaviour
changes at all towards him?
Yes. I think I was
a lot colder towards him.
I think me pulling back a little bit
forced him to up his game.
It was near Christmas,
and out of the blue he'd said,
"Do you want to go and see
A Wonderful Life
"in black and white?"
OK. And to be fair,
it was a lovely day.
And I thought, "Hm OK."
I'm kind of 50/50 at this point.
Red flag.
That is the reconciliation phase.
It's very similar to
the honeymoon period.
Right, OK.
So he's trying to take you back
Mm-hm.
..to this moment of just
joy and bliss and why?
So that you will begin to forget
The bad stuff. ..the bad stuff.
"Let's go back to the good stuff."
And what better way? Christmas time,
Christmas markets, romantic movie
And to your point, you said
you felt great after that. Mm-hm.
It was a lovely day.
It was really thoughtful.
Sometimes he keeps
a relationship going
purely through financial abuse.
There were two women who had given
him around £70,000.
The women feel trapped by
the financial abuse.
They can't leave because they
want to get their money back.
And so he strings these
situations out.
At this point, he's building
layers and layers and layers
of manipulation -
emotionally, financially.
It's all fine and well looking back
and recognising
and spotting the behaviours.
But when you're in it,
you've got love hearts in your eyes.
You don't care.
So from Christmas,
things get worse.
He had messaged me while
I was at work,
a story about a friend of his who
he'd never mentioned before.
His friend wanted to take a girl
away to this lodge for the weekend.
It was going to be an around,
I think, £800.
His friend, he'd asked
Chris for money,
but he said his bank
account was frozen.
Could I transfer this money
to his friend
so he could book this weekend?
And he would give me
the money back that night in cash.
The story didn't add up to me.
He was sending me these
voice notes, saying,
"Just admit it, you're skint,
you have no money.
"You're so embarrassing."
He was very irate. Very angry.
So what he's doing in this moment
is a red flag Mm-hm.
..where he's trying to increase
the pressure on you
to deliver immediately.
I didn't know whether I was
coming or going.
I couldn't really see it
cos I was in it.
Six months into their relationship,
Christopher Harkins is pressuring Jak
to urgently transfer nearly £1,000
to his friend's bank account.
He asked me for money again.
He's asking you
to send it immediately.
And this is where the
danger increases. Yeah.
Because not only is he emotionally
manipulating you,
but he then begins
to financially manipulate you.
What did you end up doing?
Something inside of me just said
.."Do not do it."
That was the defining moment
when I thought,
"There's something
not right here. Run."
So you did not send the money?
No. OK.
How long is the
relationship at this point?
About six months. Six months?!
Look at what you've gone through
in six months! Yeah.
I mean, it feels like a lifetime.
I know.
But the biggest takeaway here is
you didn't send the money.
Nope, and I feel like that
needed to happen for me
to just block it and move on.
You've still not gave me
the money back for the shirts,
so let's call it a day.
But within 24 hours,
I start getting texts
from numbers I didn't have saved.
And it was him, just abusing me.
He was saying I was ugly.
He felt sick every time
he looked at my teeth -
hence why I've got nice new teeth.
Would you say that was
an insecurity of yours?
He obviously knew I was insecure
about my teeth andplayed on it.
He was threatening me.
He was saying that
my family were for it.
He was going to do something bad.
Did you believe him?
Yeah.
I was scared.
I was on edge, I was nervy,
I was, like, looking behind me
when I was walking about.
And at that time,
I had no idea how
..crazy and dangerous he was.
OK. It's not every day a man
threatens you and your family.
I've always suffered from anxiety,
but it definitely heightened it
at that time, and it took a while -
it took a good few months
for it to kind of settle down.
It never left my mind
for a long time.
But you had no idea how
dangerous he actually was? No.
How do you find this out?
A few years later? Erm
Years later?
Years. My best friend at
the time had tagged me on
a Facebook post, and the headline
was something along the lines of
"Glasgow conman cons women
out of £4,000 holiday". Wow.
The comment she'd written was,
"Is that not your ex?"
He wasn't my boyfriend.
He was a scammer.
I was in shock.
The idea of romance fraud
was very new.
It wasn't something
I'd ever heard of before.
It wasn't really being
written about.
So I wanted the story to be
a warning to other women
to look out for this
romance fraudster.
I've still got the actual article.
So that's it there.
Ah, let me see.
"Urges other women to
beware of Glasgow conman
"who took thousands
for fake holiday." Yeah.
My heart would drop seeing this.
Yeah. Yeah.
What did you think?
I was horrified. I was so shocked.
I feel really violated
knowing that that was
the person that I was with.
I think I probably read
the story about 15 times.
Like, I could not believe it.
But it made sense.
Yeah. Did you feel as if,
"Oh, my goodness,
"not only did he try this with me,
but he's doing this
"with other women?"
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And it wasn't long before
more people came out.
What I hadn't envisaged,
and what did happen,
was that I then had lots of
other women get in touch.
And the floodgates opened.
I had several other women who wanted
to tell their story in the paper,
who were also really concerned that
this guy had multiple victims,
because all of them thought that
they were the only one.
A girl who was one of his victims,
private messaged me on Facebook
and said, "Are you another one
of his victims?"
"Another one"? Ah
That was so powerful.
She tells me, "There's a
few of us in a group chat
"trying to put the puzzle
pieces together.
"Someone took out a loan of £20,000,
and then he ghosted her."
That made me feel physically ill.
£20,000.
"She's in this group chat
asking us for help."
And I'm sure you're recollecting
watching him walk around Yeah.
..with cash. Yeah.
And now you know where
it came from. Yeah.
It's disgusting.
It was very early 2020,
and I find out that
Christopher Harkins
had been arrested.
I really thought that I had
all the information
about Christopher Harkins, but then
the court paperwork came out.
Where were you when you first heard
about these charges?
I was in work.
I was aware of the financial
side of things. Yes.
I was aware of abuse.
I wasn't aware of how severe
the behaviour was.
Like, we're talking rape
and attempted murder.
I was completely horrified.
Very empathetic towards the women
who went through that with him.
I didn't go to the police
because I didn't give them
the money for these holidays.
I feel as though I've had
a lucky escape.
He appeared at court the first week
of January and then he was gone.
Do you fear for your safety,
knowing that he is on the run
and he has previously
threatened you?
Yeah, absolutely.
About two weeks later,
I had a phone call
from a woman in London,
and he was doing
exactly what he'd
been doing in Glasgow.
He was back on the dating apps.
He was carrying out
the exact same scams.
And these women were going
to the Met Police.
All of a sudden, he was arrested,
and then we heard that,
actually, he had been tried and he'd
been given a prison sentence.
He was jailed for 14 months.
That meant that the Scottish
proceedings couldn't go ahead
until he had served his
jail term in London.
I think
..the overall feeling was
a bit deflated.
Really, just everyone
was left in limbo.
It's in this big building
at the end, on the left.
That's the courthouse.
Oh, my goodness. OK, I see it.
This is where Chris stood trial.
Yeah. Very serious charges.
Yeah.
The day of the verdict. Mm-hm.
Could you walk us through what you're
feeling, what you're thinking?
I knew all the girls were
telling the truth.
I knew because I had
experienced him.
But you don't know how serious
the courts are going to take that.
The jury returned a verdict.
And all of a sudden,
we started hearing
the word "guilty", "guilty",
"guilty". And I was so pleased.
I can't talk about it without
getting emotional,
which is ridiculous.
Oh, no, don't film that,
that's terrible.
I'm meant to be a
hard-bitten reporter,
but it was, like, really a big
Oh, I wasn't expecting
to have a cry.
I don't even think it was relief.
Sorry, I'm getting emotional.
SHE SNIFFLES
I think because I felt so bad
for the other victims.
Because what would he have done
if he got away with that?
You don't get to just go out
and rape someone
and get away with it.
It was very validating for me
and the other women
that we'd been heard.
You just said something so powerful.
You said you feel like "we were
seen and heard". Yeah.
What does it mean to you
to feel seen and heard?
It means that the world is changing.
And as women,
were being taken serious.
There's always a stigma around,
especially, rape.
His word against hers.
Her word against his.
Rape is rape.
No is no.
It just was such a big moment.
Like
..it'd been six years
of that guy being a prick.
Chris got 12 years. Yeah.
So if you could take me
to that moment?
Honestly, I was relieved.
Yes. But I wanted more.
You wanted more? I wanted more.
For the amount of crimes that
he was found guilty of,
I just think he should
have got longer.
If there's one thing about this
whole situation, it's not about me.
And that's, that's what encouraged
me to keep To keep speaking.
What stands out to me
most about Jak's story
is that she wasn't only
being emotionally,
but also financially abused.
But as she reminds us,
this wasn't just about her -
this is the story of many women.
And when you look at them
as a collective,
you can see how dangerous
the combination of both
emotional and financial abuse can be.
A hugely important part of this
is explaining to the public
that there is nothing that these
women have done wrong.
It's not their fault,
and that sense of shame
that people feel when they
fall prey to these kind of scams
is what stops them coming forward,
and that sense of shame
protects the perpetrators.
I hope people hear our stories
..and just open their eyes
a little bit more.
We do not have to put up
with ANY sort of abuse.
My story is probably
the perfect example.
If it doesn't feel right,
it's NOT right.
I appreciate this conversation
and I know it is
going to change lives.
And I think you said it
so perfectly and succinctly -
"If it doesn't feel right,
it's not right." Yep.
I just really, really hope
..people actually see this
and learn from it.