Paul C. Brunson: Red Flag (2026) s01e05 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?
It's 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 try to hide.
He just made me think that
he was my only option.
I naively thought, "He's
just 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 Ellie
Thank you.
..who survived 12 months
of emotional torture and sexual
violence
from her boyfriend, Luke.
He seemed sweet. He seemed really
lovely at the time.
I was encouraging her not to go.
There was just something
off about him.
I want to learn how Luke
tried to hide his abuse
and tear Ellie from her family.
Did you not BLEEP
trying hit her one time?
That red mist went out again and
he just bounced his head off mine.
I felt like I was seeing stars.
Leave her alone.
And I want to understand how
Luke's toxic attitude
nearly drove Ellie to the edge.
Luke definitely treated me
a lot more like I was
an object than a human.
OK, so at this moment in time,
I'm placing you under arrest
on suspicion of rape
and controlling coercive behaviour.
He messaged people in his friends
group saying, "I violated her."
It shows you how dangerous
the manosphere is in those circles.
There is a belief that you, as
a woman, are less than.
I thought that was it -
the only way of getting out of this
relationship, really,
is if I'm dead.
Hi. Hi. Are you OK?
Good to see you. How are you doing?
I'm good, are you? Really good.
Good.
All right. Can I say Hold on.
These tats are official?
Yeah. I love these.
Thank you.
So, I'm familiar with your story,
but it's like I have the outline
Yeah.
..and now you're going to come in.
It's like a tattoo.
It's like the outline of the
tattoo
and now you're going to go in
Give you the details.
..and give me the detail.
Yeah, Absolutely.
Yeah. There's a lot.
OK.
So, prior to meeting Luke
Yeah.
..how would you
characterise yourself?
I was definitely a very bold person.
I was happy. I was up
for doing everything.
I enjoyed most things about life.
I've known Ellie for
over a decade now.
She's got a lot of charisma.
She was very strong-willed.
Wasn't afraid to speak her mind.
And a gobshite.
If she had an opinion,
you'd know about it.
Take me to the first time
that you met Luke.
So, I had started
working at a warehouse.
I kind of ended up gelling
with all of the workers.
So, that's like how I'd met
Luke, through all of them.
What was your take on Luke?
I'm not going to lie,
appearance-wise,
I don't have much of a type.
I'm very much a personality person.
He was quite funny and he was
He seemed sweet.
He seemed really lovely at the time.
And how did he act with you on,
say, the first one or two dates?
So, the first time,
he was dead respectful
and he'd asked me, like, you know,
about my family and stuff.
And then the second time.
But I remember him being
very pushy about
wanting to kiss me and stuff.
And if I didn't, it was kind of
like, "Well, what's up with you?
"Why would you not want to kiss me?"
Do you know what I mean?
This is very interesting.
That was your only
It was your second date. Yeah.
One red flag right there -
possessiveness. Yeah.
He is, in essence,
saying, "You are mine."
He did. Oh, he said that?
Yeah. He said that to me.
He would say like, "You're mine
now," and stuff like that.
Really? Yeah.
On the second date? Yeah.
What I've noticed that
a lot of abusers do
is they try and accelerate Yeah.
..the relationship
so that they could give
the perception that you're closer.
Whereas I was still getting
to know this person,
I didn't know much about him.
Ellie's taking me
to her parents' house.
I want to know how Luke
came across to her family
and what they thought of him.
All right. Can you get down there?
Thank you.
There you go.
How did it go when Luke
was introduced to your parents
for the first time?
Awful.
It was around summertime and that,
so everyone was out in the garden.
I spoke to him about my dad
because my dad had started going
through tests for cancer
and stuff like that.
So, my dad wasn't doing too well.
So, yeah. So, he knew well that was
going on. OK. Yeah.
I'll never forget it.
He pulled up on the front.
I remember he had like a pink
shirt on and his shorts on,
and we'd come through and
everything, and mum had let us in.
So my dad and my sister was out in
the garden and stuff,
and obviously my mum's gone through,
and he instantly just sat down,
put his feet up
and threw his arm around me.
And then it was just
..all about him.
You know, if I was talking,
it was talking over me
or if my phone went off.
"Who's texting you?" Right.
There was a point where
my phone had gone off
and I just went,
"Oh, it's just Connor."
"Do you not need to
see what he says?"
And I'm like, "No, we're all
talking. I'll check it later."
"Well, why don't you
just have a look?"
So, then, I'm checking it next
to him and showing him.
Now, I have to ask
You saw some behaviour
you didn't like.
He put the feet on the table.
He's being disrespectful. Yeah.
Why didn't you say anything to him?
Just anxiety.
I just remember feeling
so uncomfortable.
And then he was, like,
sat with his arm around me.
And then when we'd
When we left, he was like,
"Oh, your sister's
gorgeous, isn't she?"
And I just
I felt sick when he said it.
I don't trust the tone
that's being used in that.
Do you know what I mean?
No. No, not at all.
In this moment, when Luke
is meeting your parents
for the first time, and your sister,
openly disrespecting you in
front of family and friends,
and he's disrespecting your family.
So, you see multiple red flags
in just this quick
first-time interaction.
I just thought, "Oh,
he's probably nervous."
My mum was just like that.
"I don't like him.
"He's going to cause
a lot of trouble."
What do you respond with?
All I could think in my head was,
"Well, he's been lovely.
"He keeps telling me
he really likes me."
So, I remember making up loads
of excuses for him.
"He's been dead lovely.
He's dead nice.
"Like, please. It was just like
a first impression gone wrong."
There's a level of disrespect
that's taking place. Yeah.
What were his attitudes and views
towards women at that point?
He used
A lot of
A lot of terms
..like slag and stuff like that.
Him and his boys would all be
messing about,
pretending to rap and stuff like
that.
And then he was like,
"I wrote a rap about us," and stuff.
Do you have the lyrics?
I do, yeah.
Is that a? Is he a rapper?
No. No?
"Go yard, Go yard.
Girl, you make me go hard.
"Make me want to wake up in
the morning and bone you.
"Is this love?
Is this really, really love?
"Am I a mug or do
they give aeff?"
I honestly don't think that would
make the charts, if I'm honest.
I mean, it's very basic,
but it's also misogynistic.
Yeah.
That isn't romantic.
That is quite disgusting.
I was mortified
because I thought, "How many people
have you gone and rapped this to?"
I think there's a red flag there
of public humiliation.
Yeah. It's,
"I'm going to say this out loud."
I feel like something that
got him off sometimes,
if that makes sense.
And you think that gave him a
Absolutely.
Yeah, it definitely gave him a
thrill. "A thrill"? Yeah.
Anything to humiliate me, he did.
Just within the first month,
there's so much that happens. Yeah.
So, me and him start seeing
each other around April,
very early April.
And then I went on my
family holiday around May time.
He kind of called things off
whilst I was on holiday.
He breaks up with you? Yeah.
So, Ellie, when you were away
with your family on holiday,
what happens?
So, whilst were on holiday,
he was just like,
"I just basically, I just don't
think this works."
I was shocked.
I did like him.
Like, "What's wrong with me?"
Do you know what I mean?
Like, is everything OK?
Have I done something?
I was a bit hurt by it
because I thought everything
was going all right.
I'd come back and he
came over to me at work
and basically said he was sorry.
"Oh, let's fix things," like,
"I miss you," blah, blah, blah.
And then you do start to think,
"How can I make this better?"
Because he was so strong
with how affectionate
he was towards me,
I thought, "Oh, he is
He just really likes me."
He'd made me feel like
I was on top of the world.
It was, like, a guilt thing.
Like, "I need to repair this
relationship
"if it's going to work."
Let's make sure it works.
Yes. This is exactly what he did.
That's the red flag.
It's push-pull. Yeah.
Because Luke broke up with you,
there's the push,
and then you come back. Mm-hm.
He pulls you in. Yep.
The dangerous piece
is that the person who's being
pushed or pulled
feels like they need to work a
little extra harder. Yeah.
And this is where many begin
to cross their own boundaries.
Because they want to please
the person who's pushing
and pulling them.
So, how quickly did he
say that he loved you?
Um, first three months.
Really? Yeah.
I think that is directly connected
with the push-pull.
Yeah, I remember
we was just in bed,
he was, like, lay across
in front of me.
And I was laying my front,
like, just on the bed.
We was chatting and stuff.
As I looked at him,
he just went, "I love you."
And I was just like
ELLIE GASPS
"What do I say?"
And I just kind of went,
I'm like, "Oh, thanks,"
do you know what I mean?
And obviously that
..was definitely
the wrong thing to say.
He got very annoyed and
was basically just like,
"Why don't?" Like, "Why
are you not saying it back?
"Is there someone else?
There must be someone else."
The fact that he said
you must be in love with someone
else,
that's the red flag. Yeah.
That's that accusatory control.
Mm-hm.
Now, you know you're not. Yeah.
He knows you're not. Yeah.
But him saying that allows
him to begin to control you.
Yeah. See how I'm going
to react to that. Exactly.
I just chose not to say anything.
I think, as much as I was
a bold character and everything,
I think, with my dad and stuff,
I had a bit of
outside comfort off someone
and I was more focused on that.
My mum likes to always say she
thinks I was in a bad place.
Because your father, at this point,
was going through
Was it a cancer diagnosis? Yeah.
There was a lot of anxiety.
My family were going through enough
stress as it was.
Luke was a big distraction.
Luke became another problem,
but I felt like it was a
problem that I could deal with
more than what was
going on with Dad.
This makes sense.
We'd argue a lot.
We were on and off a lot.
I'd get the guts to leave
and then he turned up at my house,
and I was straight back with him
because it was easier to
get back with him than, obviously,
have him kicking off at my house.
At this point,
how many months into the
relationship were you?
Maybe six months.
Do you feel as if your
boldness that you first had?
It had gone.
He had me where he wanted to be
and he basically just got
to do whatever he wanted, really.
Luke would call Ellie
for hours on end.
I would hear the emotional
abuse that he would give Ellie.
He would often call her fat
and comment on her weight.
There wasn't a single day
when he wouldn't,
you know, label her
a slut or a slag.
I was angry at him for thinking he
could speak to her like that,
and I was angry at her for letting
him speak to her like that.
It's not like her at all.
And it would push Ellie away a bit
because I felt so
strongly about this.
It was always, "You're an effing
slut," and stuff like that.
His favourite thing to tell me was
that I was a worthless whore.
The fact that he repeated it
..over and over again,
you know, what I'm learning in
this conversation with you
is how careful he is with his
words Yeah.
..and precise he is in
using his words Yeah.
..to manipulate you.
There's the degradation red flag,
because he's consistently
calling you things like worthless,
and you're beginning to believe it.
And what I'm beginning to feel as
if, right around the six month part,
that you feel it's
easier to be with him,
then that means that you're away
from everyone else. Yeah.
My dad did not like him at all.
Hated him.
It was always easier to just stay in
the relationship
..and keep him happy,
and keep him away from my house.
I was lying, and I was hiding that
I was with him from my family.
Did you feel as if you
..isolated yourself from your
family? Yeah. Absolutely.
My dad's in hospital.
Do you know what I mean?
My dad's getting Covid
and being kept on the ward.
I wasn't there.
Do you know what I mean? I weren't
there for Mum.
I wasn't there for Dad. Like
I should have been there
and I wasn't.
But also, Ellie, I think you
have to give yourself grace
because you were
making that decision
because of the control. Yeah.
I took what option was easiest.
And right then,
that was to deal with it.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
And, like, as much as
I'm mad at him for it,
I was making that decision.
Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
But, yeah.
And that's why coercive control,
which is what's happening here,
is so dangerous.
And then, during this
whole time, is Luke aware
and does he continue to
try to pursue you even more?
Yeah. By this point,
Luke knows how everyone
feels about him.
But there was one time where
he turned up at my house
..asking for my dad's
approval to marry me.
Oh, wow.
My dad was just like,
"Are you for real?
"Because absolutely not."
There was this footage of
the Ring doorbell when
he turned up there.
Do you know? How do you think
I fucking feel about that?
You're playing a dangerous
game, mate.
I'm getting better now.
The best thing you can do, mate,
is get in your car and fuck off.
Leave her alone!
It's not happening.
There is a red flag here of
fixation Mm-hm.
..because he's constantly
pursuing you. Yeah.
So, why do you think
Luke shows up that way,
with your father, in that moment?
He's trying to act innocent.
He tries to present as if he
was this respectful person
while still doing disrespectful
things in that moment.
At six months, it seems
like this is the point where
things begin to get worse. Yeah.
He knows Connor's my best mate.
He'd met Connor. He knew Connor.
And then there was an incident where
Con was going getting a new car.
So I text Luke and I said,
"Is there any chance you'll
take Con to go and get his car?"
And Luke was like,
"Yeah, yeah, that's fine."
So, Luke and Con went
and got this car.
So, we travelled down
and, on the way,
he'd leaned over and
tried to kiss me
while driving.
I was in just, like, shock
and I pulled away
and I actually began
to scream a bit like,
"Whoa, what are you doing?" Like
Con told me about this
straight away.
Like, the second Con was
out that car and away from Luke,
Connor rang me to tell me this.
So, I rang Luke and I was like,
"Why have you not told me about
this?"
And he was like, "Oh, Connor was
just blowing it out of proportion."
Connor's like, "Ellie you're a fool
if you believe that."
So, did you believe it?
Deep down, absolutely,
I believed Connor,
but I was at a point of,
"What can I actually do?
What can I do about it?"
By that point, I'd just give up.
For so long, we trusted
each other's judgment.
We'd have that 100% honesty
with each other at all times.
It was a bit of a punch in the gut
to, you know, feel like,
you know, disregarded.
It was sort of just
brushed to the side.
My friends are, like,
at the wits' end with me.
My family have got
stuff to deal with.
I was just like, "This man
will do whatever he wants."
And that terrified me
more than anything.
He'd cheat all the time.
He'd started saying, "Why don't
we just have an open relationship?"
"If you want to make me happy,
if you want this relationship
to work, then do it."
That was all I heard was,
"I want an open relationship."
And then I eventually got to a point
where I was sick of him asking me.
I was sick of the reaction
I got from saying, "No."
And I just went, "Yeah, all
right, then. Let's do it."
And then it's like a red mist just
went over his face..
..and he slapped me,
like, across the face.
There is no boundary that
this man won't cross.
For eight months,
Luke's attitude towards
Ellie has become more toxic.
Ellie has reluctantly agreed
to his demand
for an open relationship,
but Luke has slapped
her in response.
I was literally just like,
"Right, OK, here's another level
that we've crossed now."
Panic sunk in.
For accepting what hewanted.
Yeah. Because then he went,
"Well, who have you
got in mind then?
"Who are you wanting to be with?
"Who do you want to sleep with?"
And then all of a sudden,
he didn't want the
open relationship any more.
Never heard about it again after.
So many red flags.
The fact that he accused you
Yeah.
..of, you know,
wanting someone else,
he's gaslighting you. Yeah.
That's the red flag there.
Yeah.
The entire charade of,
"I want an open relationship,"
until you accept it
and then he doesn't,
that's coercive control.
Everything was about
control with the cheating.
He was going out and doing
whatever he wanted,
and he was still managing
to convince me to
get back in bed with him
at the end of the night.
It's not just about manipulating you
for, specifically,
emotional purposes
but he's trying to manipulate
you for sexual reasons.
Because, yeah, he was taking
advantage
in a lot of ways.
Degrading is
something that got him off.
If I was crying,
he'd masturbate in front
of me whilst I was crying
because it was something
that got him off.
Are you thinking,
"This is what life is going to be
for me now?" Yeah.
I thought that was it.
Like, I genuinely thought,
at one point, like
..the only way of getting out of
this relationship, really,
is if I'm dead.
There was one incident where
I'd been at my friend's house
and because my friend was
a straight male,
that wasn't OK.
And Luke had picked me
up from my friend's house.
We went and parked near
It's like a little
dirt track near us.
And he turned around and he went,
you know, "I want
to check inside you."
And I just kind of looked
at him and I was like,
"What?!" Like, "What?!"
And he's like,
"I want to check inside you
"to make sure that you've
not cheated on me."
He genuinely must have thought
I was just going to, yeah, take
my pants off and let him check.
Thank you.
This was actually the place where he
asked to check inside me
Right here? Right here.
Oh, my goodness.
..to make sure I hadn't
cheated on him.
There's not a lot of
good memories down here.
What was going on in your mind?
I was absolutely disgusted
by the question.
To ask something like
that just made me feel sick.
Did you believe him?
I believe that he wanted to.
He was deadly serious.
He absolutely would have done
anything he could to have checked.
And it's that fear of,
you know,
if I keep saying, "No," is he going
to force me to do it anyway?
You know, no-one will hear me.
No-one will see us
because it's late.
Yeah, I terrified.
We must have argued
for about 30 minutes
over me not wanting him to check
inside me or anything like that.
And you know, when someone's sat
there and they're going,
"Well, why? Why? Why not?
Why you've clearly cheated then."
And then you're thinking,
"Well, no, I haven't."
And then you get to
the point where you think,
"Am I going to actually have
to do this in a minute?"
Your body does
..go into full panic mode.
That's sexual harassment. Yeah.
That's precisely what he's doing.
But that was the one time where
I was just like, "No."
You held your own? Yeah. Absolutely.
But he continued to insist? Yeah.
You could see that him
making a request so absurd,
and sinister, shows
..the role that he
perceived himself to have. Yeah.
This is why he'd become more
and more terrifying to me.
Were you, at this point,
physically in fear of him?
I feel like he was a person
with a lot of rage.
There was times where
he'd been physical.
He's been swinging off my neck.
He's dragged me on
the floor by my hair.
There was the times where
he's chased me upstairs
and I ran into his room
but, as I ran into his room,
he grabbed me by
the back of my neck.
And as he's thrown me on this floor,
he's then grabbed me by, like,
kind of the back of me, here,
and stopped me because he
thought
that my head was going to go
through that table, like.
He literally turned around and
went, "I nearly killed you then."
And that's when I was like,
"There's no That is
"If that's the only thing that's
stopping you, then, yeah,
"I am absolutely
terrified for my life."
"Don't say the wrong thing.
Don't say the wrong thing."
Like, it's scary.
I just got used to,
"This is our pattern now.
"This is what we do."
You know, what I thought was
going to be a normal relationship
has turned into
..something I'd watch on a series.
I had all these things
in my head, like,
to absolutely tear him apart,
but my body wouldn't let me say it
because my body knew
the consequence of it
and it would be back to,
"You're a fat bitch,
"you're this, you're that,
"you're a worthless slut,
you're a worthless whore."
I think misogyny comes in
so many different forms.
For some men, it's about
devaluing women.
For some men,
it's about a disrespect.
For some men, it's about
sexual objectification. Yeah.
But what makes it so dangerous,
at this moment,
is Luke's no longer
objectifying you,
but you've reached a point
where you're starting to
objectify yourself. Yeah.
He was telling me the
same thing every day,
that I was worthless,
and I think I got to a point in
myself where I accepted that,
and I treated myself
as if I was that.
Ellie is taking me
close to Luke's house
..the scene of some
of his worst attacks.
It's a difficult place to return to,
so we've stopped
a comfortable distance away.
Hi. Hey there, Ellie. Hi.
How does it feel to sit here
and be this close to the house?
Nerve-racking. Very nerve-racking.
I feel like Like, you know,
I've told you before that,
like, my body hurts.
Like, I feel that again.
I feel like a lot of
..memories are coming
back right now.
A lot to take in.
You must have come
to visit him here.
Yeah, I stayed here a lot.
I feel like, anywhere I went,
I wasn't safe.
But in there, I was in his house.
I knew I was on my own in that home.
All the major bad incidences
happened in that house.
If you can,
walk me through what happens.
There was one incident
..where I'd woke up
and I had no underwear
on in the morning.
And I know, like,
you know, I always go to sleep with
my underwear on.
And when I spoke to him
about it, and I was like,
"Why I have not got any underwear
on?" And he was like,
"Oh, yeah, it was really hard
to get them off you last night."
I was just like, "That's not OK."
Do you know what I mean?
And I just went into
full panic and rage,
and was just arguing with him
about it.
He made me feel like I was
literally just a body to him.
But then there was another incident
where I'd woke up
and he was actively
having sex with me,
and I'd woke up middle of the act.
My body kind of just seized up.
My mouth wouldn't
let me say anything.
And I just remember feeling
so dazed and confused.
I was just kind of like,
"What is going on here?"
After a year of
appalling toxic behaviour
and violent abuse,
Luke has started to sexually
assault Ellie while she sleeps.
I had made it clear that, you know,
there's no If I'm asleep,
I'm asleep.
And ultimately,
in not one of those incidents,
did you give consent?
No.
And not giving consent
clearly qualifies it as rape.
Mm-hm.
Consent isn't a lifetime permit.
Absolutely.
And I think there's still
a misunderstanding.
Yeah. Just because consent once
doesn't mean consent the
five times after. Exactly.
The main time it happened,
he'd been at work
and seen some sex
move on social media
that had been posted.
So, all day, Luke had been telling
me about this sex move
that he wanted to try,
but wouldn't tell me what it was.
He was like,
"You'll find out later."
Come to later on,
I kind of turned over and was like,
"I'm tired now. I'm going to sleep."
And that's when he
started putting his penis in me,
putting his fingers in me.
I'm telling him to stop
and pushing him off me.
And then he says a girl's name.
And I just went,
"What?" And he went, "All right,"
and said her name again.
And I went, "What are you on
about?"
"Why would you call me that?"
And he was like,
"Oh, that was the move."
I've never heard of anyone ever
making a request like this.
No.
This sex move is where you are
having sex with your partner.
You lock her in by your arms
and then call her
another girl's name
and see how long you
can stay inside her for.
He's forced himself on me.
He's violating me. Once again.
I'd gone up and tried to, like,
book my taxi and stuff.
Got all my stuff together
and was booking my taxi,
and he slapped the phone
out of my hand.
And then, before I knew it,
me and him were fighting.
I'm trying to get my phone.
We're wrestling.
I'm on the bed.
He's got me pinned on the bed.
He went from having my hands,
like this,
to quickly grabbing
my shirt like that
and pulling me forward at him,
and he just bounced
his head off mine,
and I just remember
..I felt like I was seeing stars.
Oh, he headbutted you?
Yeah. I don't know
if you can just tell
by how much my forehead
comes forward here. Yes.
By this point, I'd managed to get in
touch with my friend
who booked me an Uber
because he was slapping
my phone out of my hand
and not letting me book the Uber,
and I just legged
it out of the house.
Did you take what was happening?
Did you see those
as sexual assaults?
That time, yeah.
I, then, found out he'd messaged
other people about it as well
and it wasn't just
people in his friends group.
He actually sent a message
to someone else saying,
"After five noes,
I stopped listening to her.
"I violated her."
Wow.
"I headbutted her,
I pinned her up," and all this,
and he wrote, in fine detail,
everything that he did to me.
And he's openly bragging
about this? Yeah.
I think it got to a point where it
was anyone who would listen to him
about what he'd done.
It's just
You know, it's hideous in
several ways
Yeah.
..because I think what happens
with misogynistic behaviour
is, unfortunately, it breeds.
Massive red flag here is
this dangerous social circle
that's giving the allowance of
this behaviour. Yeah.
I'm hearing no-one saying,
"This is sexual assault."
Like, "This is illegal."
"This is unacceptable. This is"
And so I think that's
That is That's disturbing.
Yeah.
Then there's the fact that
he is saying this like it is
just an ordinary day.
Normal conversation.
Just a normal conversation.
Which makes me think,
what were the other conversations
Yeah. ..he's been having throughout
the course of your relationship?
Yeah.
I felt like I had absolutely
nothing to live for any more.
And that's when I felt like,
"I'm not hiding.
"I'm not hiding in
my house any more."
And then that was it.
And then the rage just built?
Yeah, and I had to report it.
This was when he was arrested.
Just before I give you
Just pop them on there.
Just before I give you a search.
OK. So, at this moment in time,
I'm placing you under arrest
on suspicion of rape and
controlling coercive behaviour.
You don't have to say anything
but it may harm your defence if
you do not mention, when questioned,
something which you
later rely on in court.
Anything you do say may be given
as evidence. Do you understand?
A few weeks later,
the detective who ran my case,
he was so determined to get
a good result from this
because he was like,
"I've gone through the phone,
"I've seen the messages,
"I've seen the evidence.
We're going to do this." Yes.
When he was out on bail,
during that time Mm-hm.
..were you, at all, scared
for yourself or for your family?
Absolutely terrified.
And I thought,
"He's planning something here,"
and then he got arrested again.
10-0-2.
So you're under arrest on
suspicion of rape, OK?
So, you do not say anything,
but it may harm your defence
if you do not mention, when
questioned,
something which you later
rely on in court
And anything you do say may
be given in evidence, OK?
We are at Bolton Crown Court.
So, this is where they
did the trial.
You came here to the trial?
Yeah. Yeah? Yeah.
And testified, obviously?
I did, yeah.
When you got in the car every
morning to come down here,
what was going on in your
mind, in your heart?
The first few days,
it was a lot.
You know, the anxiety,
like, I was Physical
side effects of anxiety and stuff,
being sick and everything.
So, what was happening during
the trial, in particular?
How was Luke showing up here?
The way he presented in court,
like, he was sat in the box
and he was going,
"I'm bored, I'm bored." Right.
"I want a cig. I'm bored."
The way he spoke about women
And do you know what?
Especially in front of
a female judge as well.
Like, you'd think you'd be very
careful with your choice of words
but, instead, he said
He referred to all women as "it".
When he spoke about the other girl,
he'd say that he sat there
and admired her vagina.
The more and more that
I hear about him,
the more and more it seems as if
he believed what he was saying
and what he was doing
was acceptable.
Yeah. Oh, absolutely.
And it shows you
how dangerous misogyny is,
the manosphere is because,
I think in those circles,
there is a belief that you,
as a woman, are less than.
Yeah. Right? Absolutely.
What stands out to you
in terms of your
most unforgettable memories here?
Definitely, the verdict.
All my family and friends.
And like, we're all sat
on the back rows. Yes.
Everyone was just holding hands.
And then it was like
the first charge
..guilty, and everyone kind of
squeezed their hands together.
And then the second charge, guilty,
and then the third charge, guilty,
and then Come seven charges,
were all guilty.
And I think, by that point,
I'm surprised everyone's fingers
didn't break
because we were like,
"Oh, my God." Oh, OK! Yeah.
And it was knowing that I'd been
believed, more than anything. Yes.
Like, it was like that relief
and like that weight had just come
off my chest.
And I just thought, like,
"You know what? I've got it now."
When we walked out that door
and we were all been crying,
so my make-up was everywhere,
but it was just tears of joy
Yeah. ..like, and my body just
wanted to, like, do cartwheels
and dance, and everything Really?
..because I was just so happy.
Like, he got what he deserved.
Did you almost dance down
these steps? Oh, yeah.
We was all cheering and
everything when we come out.
There you go.
The old Ellie came back.
The old Ellie definitely
come back on that stand.
I'm so glad to be able to come
somewhere with you Yeah.
..that brings you
happy memories. Yeah.
I can't hide my smile when I'm here.
I know.
It just reminds me of the
fact that he's locked up. Yeah.
15 years.
15 years.
I was so lucky.
I'm so lucky because, even though I
pushed everyone away, like,
they were still there
when I come back.
Do you know what I mean?
My family and my friends. Like
..that was the most
important thing.
And that was the one thing,
out of everything.
I took everything
out of that relationship.
He took my family away from me,
and that's what it hurt me most.
And I've got them back, and I'm so
happy that I've got them back.
And, like, I know I'll be fine now
because I've got all these lot.
Luke made Ellie believe
that she was worthless.
This was where Ellie
proved him wrong.
But it wasn't just Ellie.
Her friends and family were here.
Her parents were here.
Her parents saw what they
had always seen about Luke.
He talked in misogynistic terms.
He called women "it".
But what was beautiful is
the jury came right back
with a verdict of guilty.
And then on top of that,
the Ellie that we
always knew was there -
the fullness, the boldness,
the confident Ellie -
she came back as well.
I honestly feel like
..we're stronger after everything
with Luke
because I think Obviously I was
in the hardest time of my life
and I think, when you're in that
position,
you find out who your closest people
are.
I just love you. I just You know
I do.
Like, you're just my
right arm. Yeah. You are.
You're my soulmate. My twin flame.
Literally, soulmate.