Paul C. Brunson: Red Flag (2026) s01e06 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.
And how are you doing?
So 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 Gareth, who survived
a violent and mentally degrading
relationship with his
girlfriend Sarah.
It's just a lot easier for me
to just sit there
and take the beating,
because nobody's ever
going to believe this
had happened to me.
I want to learn how
Sarah used gender as a weapon
to control and abuse Gareth.
"You pay all the bills. You're
the man and you're my walking ATM.
"If you don't like it,
I'll go to the police.
"I'll tell them you raped me."
My God, Gareth.
You see this person shrinking
until they're not them any more.
It makes me feel
as if you're worthless.
It's like you're being treated
like an animal.
And I want to hear how it felt for
Gareth to be trapped by Sarah,
and how her abuse drove him to
the brink of starvation.
How close do you think
he was to death?
Close.
We just kept telling him,
"You've got to get out of there."
She was right in my face.
"The way things are going, Gareth,
one of us might end up
"killing each other."
Did you believe
she may actually kill you?
I did, yeah.
Hi, Gareth. Good to meet you.
Me too. I'm Paul. Hi, Paul.
Yeah, pleasure. How are you doing?
Yeah, I'm not too bad. You?
I am so honoured to have
this conversation with you.
We rarely hear from the men
Yeah. ..who are survivors.
You know, you're
You're right, you know,
and I think there is still
a lot of stigma in society.
Hopefully telling my story will,
you know, encourage others
to maybe escape a bad situation.
And if it can help
one other person out there,
then, you know,
this is worthwhile doing it.
He was a very loving boy,
very sensitive,
but extremely capable.
He excelled at rugby and I think
he's always wanted to be
married with children.
Very family orientated,
which he still is.
And we've always been close.
Always been very close.
All right. Can we begin with
how you met Sarah?
Sure, erm I'd probably kind of
been out of the dating game,
maybe for about six
Six months, I think. OK.
I felt ready at that point
to go back online again.
Came across Sarah and, erm,
just reached out to her,
and I actually thought,
to begin with, she wouldn't reply.
Why?
Because I don't know,
maybe I felt that she was such a,
you know, such a good-looking,
you know, girl,
that why would she reply to me?
And
..when I did get it, your heart
does flutter a bit, right?
You kind of think, "Oh, wow.
She's interested in me."
And it was around July 2021 that we,
that we first met.
When you meet Sarah, what's
the first thing that you think?
You think, you know, "Wow,"
and she's touching hands
across the table, you know,
already and saying, like,
"You're such a nice guy
and I can picture a future
"with us together," and using
all of On the first date?
On the first date, yeah.
Did you seal your first date
with a kiss?
Yes, we did, yeah.
Oh, my goodness.
You both look happy.
Yeah. I mean, you feel that
way right at the time, you know,
and you just think, "This is it,
and I've," you know,
"met the woman of my dreams."
I remember him saying that
he was seeing somebody.
It's all lovey,
as new relationships are.
But I think the relationship seemed
to move on extremely quickly.
How quickly did physical
intimacy begin?
Probably after the second date.
It was It felt it was
natural to begin with,
and then it was twice every day.
Then it was three, four times a day.
Is that something that you were
initiating or Sarah was initiating?
It was her, yeah.
Yeah, you just get swept up in it.
I think it's a great example
of multiple red flags in there.
So you have the overall
love bombing,
which a lot of abusers
do to accelerate
the pace of the relationship,
so you feel like you're closer
to each other than you actually are.
But then what I hear you saying
is there's that sexual escalation
happening without you
even realising it.
What I also found is, like,
she said, you know, "I love you"
after two dates.
Two dates in? Yeah.
Isn't that interesting?
We're not really going
at a slow coach speed here.
Like, we are like, zooming down
the motorway type thing.
It was all a bit of a whirlwind. Yes.
Gareth is bringing me
to near where Sarah lived
so I can hear what life was like
for him when they started dating.
This is Sarah's estate,
so we're not actually far
from her house at the moment.
When was the last time
you were back here?
This is the first time since
the 1st of March, 2022.
Yeah, it's a It's a, it's a bit
emotional, you know, being back.
I mean, you look at it, you know,
it's a nice estate, nice little area.
We were going out about on
the weekend and meals and,
you know, at home,
watch a movie or whatever.
Like, just a normal relationship.
You're a month in.
What happens next?
I was saying to my mum
how great Sarah was.
And then I just had a message,
like out of the blue
flashed up on my phone from Sarah
..saying, "D'you know what?
"I don't think this is going to
work out between us."
I was hurt, really upset about it
because things had gone,
you know, so overwhelmingly well
to begin with.
I felt downhearted about things.
But then I thought,
"Well, no, I'm still going to try
and give the dating thing a go."
So I went back on the dating app
cos I thought things were over.
And then I had a message
of Sarah saying,
"It's not you, it's me.
"I'm sorry, I didn't really
mean to say that to you."
And she just said,
"I go through these phases.
"This is just a phase.
We'll get through this.
"Things will be better.
"Why don't you come back to mine
and we'll, you know
"..let's rekindle things again."
How do you feel knowing that she now
wants you back in her life?
You feel overjoyed.
You know, you feel like,
"Oh, wow, she DOES want me,"
and maybe it's just a blip.
That is definitely a red flag.
She's not accepting
the responsibility.
Abusers refuse to take
any accountability.
And here she's putting on the face.
But it seems as if
it's very effective.
Yeah, you believe it.
And you can see how that is
the beginning of the manipulation.
One month into your relationship
and you're back.
I mean, I'm sure you feel great.
Yeah. You know,
when she was like, you know,
"Why don't you come here?
You should be around here with me."
And I think the following morning,
I was just in my boxer shorts.
A message pinged up from
the dating app.
She was not happy AT ALL.
You know, it was, erm
You know, like red mist
right in my face.
"Who the fuck is this?!"
She'd thrown the phone at me.
She was like,
"Get out my fucking house."
So you've what, a T-shirt?
You're in your
Nothing, just my boxer shorts.
Oh, nothing, just boxers?
Just my boxer shorts. Yeah.
I mean, how did that feel?
Ach, I was just shocked.
You know, kind of
Bit like, "What?"
I've always been brought up
to be respectful to women
and I was at her property
and I'll go outside, fine.
Let the situation simmer, five,
ten minutes, whatever.
She'll let me back in again.
Knocked the door a couple
of times and nothing.
I was probably 20 or 30 minutes
Wow. ..out there. Wow.
I'm 20 miles away from my home.
I'm in my boxer shorts.
I didn't know what else to do,
so I called the police.
I had to wait maybe another hour.
You're out there for,
for an hour and a half?
Yeah, just sat on her lawn.
So the police show up?
Yeah. When the police turned up
..they just kind of looked at me
a bit weird.
And I said, "You know,
I'm stuck outside,
"and I don't really know what to do.
"Can you go and get
my stuff back, please?"
So they knocked the door,
went inside
..and then they came back out,
about a minute or two later.
They said "No, Ms Davis said
she doesn't know you."
Wow
A month into their relationship,
Sarah has thrown Gareth
out of her house
in just his boxer shorts.
He's called the police,
but Sarah is lying to them,
telling them she
doesn't know who he is.
At this point,
they don't believe you.
Yeah. So they believe Sarah over you.
Why do you think that's the case?
Maybe it's because they were
male officers.
They were generally
going to side with her.
"Get this weird man off my property"
type thing.
Whatever she'd said to the police
was all It's all a lie. Yeah.
How did that feel?
You wanted them to come
to your rescue and they didn't.
I was thinking, "This isbizarre."
Like, "this is not right.
"How did I end up here like this?
"How can you not believe me?"
you know.
All my stuff is in there.
Like, I just want to get my stuff
back, and I'll go.
So they did go back in again,
and this time they
brought my laptop out, pair of jeans,
my wallet, my keys, and that was it.
"Where's my Where's my shoes?
Where's my T-shirt?"
So you've no shirt?
No shirt, yeah.
That point, I was just like,
I just want to go.
I just want to go home.
Like, just put the trousers on
and then got a cab.
"This is so
"..bizarre."
What was going on in your mind?
I didn't know what to comprehend.
I mean, I was just kind of like
HE HUFFS A SIGH
"That's definitely dead now, right?
"That relationship is
definitely over."
A couple of days later,
I get a text message again from her,
apologising for what happened.
She said, "This was just
a phase of mine.
"I have these, you know,
occasional mood swings."
She said, "It's not you, it's me."
I was quite taken aback by it.
You know, I mean Of course.
She said, "I really do want things
to work out between us,
"and I really do want a future."
She said something like,
"I promise it will never
happen again."
Do you think that in that moment
you believed her,
or you wanted to believe her?
Both.
Both.
She'd said to me she'd had other men
that had been texting other women
and things, that she felt
vulnerable.
And I suppose that was
the kind of vulnerability I think
that she may be
Yeah, pulling you
To pull me back in, yeah.
And maybe the next month or so,
just a normal relationship.
Why did you go back there?
Well, I did want it to work.
There was always that hope of,
"It's just a phase.
"We'll go back to, you know,
how it was at the start.2
What you're talking about
is a clear red flag.
What Sarah did in that moment is
just this whole push-pull cycle.
First she pushed you
out of the relationship,
and then pulled you back in.
It's a never-ending cycle
that creates insecurity.
She's showing that there is
a power imbalance
and it slants towards her.
And it's the repetitiveness
of it as well.
If somebody from outside
was looking in,
it just looked like
a happy relationship.
It was as if he was under a spell.
He just did not want to do wrong
for this woman.
My mum has always wanted
the best for me.
She's always put her family first
over herself,
and just a genuine, decent,
caring, loving mother.
And so you were happy to talk
about Sarah?
She was happy to know
that Sarah was in your life?
Sarah said to me,
"Do you know what, Gareth?
"You don't really need that lady
in your life, do you?"
I was like, "Do you not want,
like, my mother to be in your life?"
And she was something like,
"Well, you don't need to worry
"about that because I've already
sent her a message anyway,
"to put things straight."
That's the first correspondence
she had with my mum.
She's calling your mother a psycho.
"Imagine having you as
a mother-in-law."
Oh, my goodness. This is wild.
At the end, she leaves it,
"F off, you vile interfering witch."
Yeah.
One month into your relationship
and she's sending your mother this.
It was a nasty, really bad text.
I thought, "Wow," you know, like
"What is this? I haven't even
met this person."
It just felt awful.
And I asked him,
"What's all this about?"
And he said, "Oh,
she doesn't mean it."
And I was like, "Mm, all right."
So obviously, you know, the alarm
bells were starting there.
I rang my mum,
and I said, "Don't worry,
she has these phases.
"Hopefully someday you'll come meet
and we'll get along," you know?
My mum was like, "Yeah,
but this is not normal, Gareth.
"This is a really not nice message."
She just said, "You know, as long
as you're happy."
HE SIGHS
Yeah. I mean
I mean, I'm just feeling the turmoil
that your mother was going through
because she sees her son happy,
and she doesn't even want
to spoil it for you.
This in itself is a red flag,
a pre-emptive isolation,
where what Sarah's beginning to do
is isolate you from your loved ones.
She knows how close you are
to your mom
and she wants to create distance.
Sarah said to me, "Look, you're
always at my house.
"You're better off just coming
to move in with me.
"You don't need to be spending money
on rent and a property and that."
And, like, to me, it did seem
a little bit logical.
On average, a year and a half
is when most people move in
after they've been dating. Yeah.
You did it in two months.
Why did you move in in two months?
Because I felt compelled to,
because more and more,
"I love you," "I love you,"
it became more and more like
the reinforcement of saying that.
Two months. Major red flag.
Major, major red flag.
We keep talking about
this escalation, right,
that's happening
in the relationship?
Her moving you in is a red flag
of rapid escalation.
You moved into her domain,
and that gives her more
ability to isolate,
and it gives you the feeling
that you're even closer.
Yeah, you think this is it, right?
You know, happily ever after,
and sail off into the sunset
and, you know, that's it.
Yes, yes.
So once you're in the house,
does anything feel like
it's changing for the bad?
Oh, yeah, the mood changed
straight away.
How so?
As soon as I moved in,
she said to me,
"You've been spending all your time
here recently.
"Well, first off,
I want back rent off you."
Back rent?
How much was it per month on rent?
£700, which she also told me
was cheap.
Was she using that to cover her rent
or her mortgage?
No, that was all
All profit, yeah.
But at the time did you think that
she was paying rent or a mortgage?
I did, yeah. You did?
Well, she told me that she was,
yeah. God.
She said, "It's your legal duty
to pay for everything."
That wasn't just a lie.
It's a lie set up to reduce
options and shrink you.
She said, "Look, Gareth,
you're in my house now.
"These are my rules.
You pay all the bills.
"You're the man,
you're the provider,
"and you're my walking ATM.
"If you don't like it,
I'll go to the police.
"I'll tell them you raped me."
Gareth has moved in with Sarah
and she's made her first threat -
pay her rent or she'll tell
the police that he raped her.
She said, "Who do you think
they're going to believe,
"little old me or big old you?"
Or big old you.
"You don't get a key.
You're only here when I'm here.
"If I'm not in the house,
you're not in the house."
That is incredibly shocking.
Incredibly shocking.
The moment that she said,
"I'll go to the police
and say that you raped me,"
physically, I felt trapped
for you.
What am I What am I going to do?
There's What can you do?
Considering you look back
at that first incident
when the police didn't believe me
then OK.
..they're never going
to believe me now.
That's a great point.
Yeah. It is that feeling of
helplessness.
You and Sarah took a trip to London.
What happened there?
She was really, really keen
on going to Harrods.
She said, "We're not leaving
this store until you buy me
"something expensive now."
"I'll just go up to that security
guard and tell him
"that you've tried to rape me."
Oh, wow.
I bought her a £2,000 Marc Jacobs
bag, and then she was happy.
It's just so shocking.
You don't know how much of
a red flag that is.
Right, that's financial coercion
that's just happened there.
I can't even identify with how
that must feel,
where she's using that threat
so you have no other option
but to buy the bag.
Yep.
I spend probably close to £40,000
on her in probably three months.
But I have no choice.
With Sarah's control escalating,
I'm back near her house to hear more
about how Gareth coped.
If Sarah wanted to go out the house
then I'd have to leave.
So I'd have to walk the streets.
She didn't like me walking up
onto the main road,
and I would always have to kind of
cut through this lane, so OK.
It was kind of as if she's a bit
ashamed in that, in that regard.
This path became your safe space.
Yeah. It was
I would kind of come
to this lane in tears.
I figured, "Well, at least
I'm on my own here and, like,
"nobody can see me," and that
kind of whole stigma,
you know, males don't show
the tears and whatnot,
so I used to do it here.
You would come here and cry?
Yeah, yeah.
This is November?
Yeah. 2021. You met in July?
Four months, yeah.
You're being threatened
with a rape allegation.
It's a high level of manipulation.
She used to keep telling me
that I've got halitosis,
and then she wouldn't kiss me
unless I'd drank half a bottle of
mouthwash and eat toothpaste.
Help me to understand what it's like
to have to go through that.
It was horrible.
It also gave me, like, a lot
of stomach pains.
But I would have to comply because
it was always that threat.
She's just going to go to the police
and nobody's ever going to,
you know, believe me.
It feels a little sad.
It feels like you're being treated
like an animal, really.
And you desperately want out and
you can't find a way out?
Exactly right, yeah.
You know, she wouldn't let me
shower.
She said, "Men are disgusting.
They're not like us women,
"and I don't want manly hair and
stuff all in my bathroom."
That's devastating,
to not be able to take a shower
in the place that you live.
I mean, I wouldn't wish that
on anybody, you know.
It was degrading.
So I used to go to the leisure
centre to shower.
Oh, wow.
She used to frisk me at the door.
She'd open my bag and she tip
my bag out
to see if there's any shower gear
in there.
If there was, she would just pour it
down the sink,
just say, "Right, well, you can't
shower now, can you?"
How far was your home
from this centre?
Well, it's over an hour walk.
The large proportion of all of this
happened mid to end October
to February. We're in the winter
months, right?
Yes. So The coldest months
of the year.
Yeah. It was extremely difficult
and trying, you know.
It makes you feel as if
you're worthless.
Everything that you're doing in
your life is controlled by Sarah.
It's a red flag, this overt control.
And at this point,
it's absolute control.
I suppose the most degrading thing
and the worst one of
the lot was she wouldn't
So she wouldn't let me use
the toilet in the house.
You know, I'd have to walk to
the local library,
or supermarket or pub.
My God, Gareth.
So you had to do this every day?
Yeah.
Yeah. So this is the pub,
which was the closest kind of
port of call where I'd have to try
and make it.
It's actually a nice pub,
although I never,
never got to try any of the food!
So you never ate here?
I never ate there, no.
She used to call me fat, smelly,
overweight, whale.
It was continuous, like, "You need
to lose weight, Gareth,
"and losing weight is about
you not eating."
If we ever went out anywhere,
I was only allowed a salad.
So would she sit and eat a full
dinner in front of you? Yeah.
Yep.
You know, I've felt degraded,
humiliated.
What were you in fear would happen
if you had a quick bite?
I'd probably get hit.
You Physically, she would
hit you?
Yeah.
Sometimes when he'd come over,
I'd notice a bruise or scratches.
And I asked him, you know,
"Are you being physically abused?"
He said something like, "I walked
into a door," or whatever.
And I just knew - I knew
that wasn't the case.
It broke your heart, really,
because it's your child
and you know that somebody
is abusing them.
But, you know, you can't make
somebody leave.
The times that I'd see my mum,
if my mum would cook something,
I'd be like, "No, sorry,
I can't eat that."
Oh, really? Because you were scared
if you ate it, she would find out.
She'd find out, yeah.
For somebody who loved his food,
he was almost afraid to eat.
He'd say, "She'll weigh me
when I go home."
"Is there garlic in this meal?
"Because she'll smell it on me
and she'll go berserk."
He'd be using deodorant,
mouth spray.
So he was absolutely petrified.
I mean, I remember she once grabbed
a glass candleholder
and smashed it into my nose.
And I have a permanent scar,
which you can see.
Oh, I do see it. I do see it.
Right there.
Many people, they would ask
themselves,
"Well, how is he not protecting
himself?"
To just
It's just a lot easier for me
to just sit there
and take the beating, because who's
going to believe me anyway, right?
And plus, an hour or two later
..she'll be all lovey and
just brush it off.
"This is a phase.
This is just a phase."
I wanted things to work out
in the long run.
It's just better to just go along
with things, you know?
Just go along with it? Mmm.
I actually ended up losing four
and a half stone in two months.
I was becoming very weak.
That's before.
That's during.
And that's after.
Oh, my goodness.
You look like you've dropped
two people.
You look entirely lost.
You suddenly looked at him
and you thought,
"Oh, my God, he looks really ill."
It's as if you see this
person shrinking
and shrinking until
they're not them any more.
Doctors have told me that's serious,
like, a lot of weight to lose.
At that point, that's when
I also became suicidal.
In this photo right here,
how close do you think
he was to death?
Close.
It just added to the stress,
the fact that you knew he was
going back there
and he was going to be hit again.
We knew he was being abused.
We just kept telling him,
"You've got to get out of there,"
knowing that we couldn't
actually do it.
It had to be down to him.
You become entrapped in this bubble
that you then believe to be,
"Well, this is the reality."
It was just the norm because
your brain becomes conditioned.
I think you've just dispelled
the myth
that if you're a man,
or if you're bigger,
or if you're stronger
than your partner,
that physical assault or physical
coercion can't happen to you.
But you've just explained
why it can and why it does.
The thing that turned it for me
was Sarah flippantly said to me,
"The way things are going, Gareth,
like, one of us might end up
"killing each other, and
it's probably going to
"be more likely me to you,"
like, a sort of death threat,
you know?
Yes.
I did kind of then fear that,
"Jesus, she might actually do this,"
like, you know?
Did you believe she may
actually kill you?
I did, yeah.
Six months into their relationship,
Gareth fears for his life.
I started to take screenshots of
messages on my phone,
when she'd made that comment about,
"We might end up killing each other,
"and it might actually be me
to you," you know,
I started sending those screenshots
to my mum because I figured,
"Well, look, if anything happens
to me,
"she's got the evidence
and" Wow.
"..and stuff there," right?
I mean, I was stressed all the time,
and it just
..was never-ending, really.
It was just, "Is she going to kill
him in the end?"
I knew that I had to do
something drastic.
Sarah was going to be
at an appointment,
so I'd arranged with my mum
in secret for a coffee.
And when we were there a message had
flashed up on my phone from Sarah
and she'd said to me,
did I take a packet of crisps?
I said, "Oh, yeah, you know,
I just was going to
"have that for my lunch."
And she said, "Absolutely not,
you fat greedy"
A load of expletives.
And my mum saw that message
and she burst into tears.
She just went ballistic, saying,
"No dinner for you tonight."
It was beyond belief, really,
you know.
But he still kept going back.
So I suggested that he speak
to the male abuse charity.
If Sarah was going out,
I wasn't allowed to be in the house.
I'd come here to the library
to work.
After I'd met my mum,
and she'd broke down in tears,
I just thought, "Yeah,
I can't put up with this.
"I will make the phone call."
Oh, wow. This is where I made
that phone call.
Can you walk me through that moment?
What's the first thing that
you say to them?
I said to them,
"I think I'm being abused
because my mother's very much
"strongly told me that I am.
And I'm not really sure what to do."
In that moment, you were still
unsure if over the last ten months
that what she was doing was abuse?
Yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't sure at all
because it just becomes reality
and I'd just accepted it,
you know.
And then when I told them everything
that I was going through,
you know, they said, "Yeah, this is
abuse and you need to get out,"
you know, and I think that was
probably the kind of eureka moment.
And so when you hang up that phone,
what is the emotion that you feel?
Hearing it from somebody completely
neutral was,
"Oh, my God, I need to get out.
I need to escape."
The next day, we'd got up,
I'd gone downstairs.
Sarah was in another foul mood.
She was just throwing a load of
abuse and things at me,
and she'd thrown a bottle at me
in the kitchen.
And I got my laptop bag,
and she was like,
"Where the fuck do you think
you're going?"
And I said, "Oh, I'm just going to
go to the library and work."
She said, "You don't need to be
I haven't told you to be
"down the library, so there's
no reason for you to go
"to the library."
And I went to walk out through
the front door,
and she put her arms across it
like this,
and she got right up into my face.
And she said,
"What are you going to do?
Are you going to hit me?
"Come on, hit me, hit me, hit me."
I feel the adrenaline
building up in you.
And you know that this is
This is your escape.
"I've got to do it now.
Like, I've got to get out."
So I went out through the back door.
I walked round the corner
and I rang my mum and I said,
"I'm out."
And then my next phone call
was to the police.
What did your mom say when you said
you were out?
She just said, "Where do you
need me to be?",
like, "and I'll be there." So
Can I just say that I love that
you called your mother first?
Yeah. Incredible.
Incredible lady, yeah.
Did you think that when you called
the police, they would believe you?
No. No.
That must have been terrifying
to make that call, then?
It was, yeah.
After they came round and
took the statement
and things from me, they then
rang me back
and told me that, "We're going
to go and arrest her."
How did that feel?
Relief.
You know, a little bit of
an adrenaline surge and things.
I was so torn between,
"Have I done the right thing?
"Have I not done the right thing?"
Shows you the stronghold, right,
that she has,
and how powerful manipulation is?
You felt as if you were
nearly there.
Nearly there.
You just wanted to get over
that finishing line, you know?
But you weren't quite sure
whether he'd completely
go through with it, you know?
I messaged her and just said,
"Look, you know, we don't need
to do this.
"Just give me my stuff back."
Like, "We'll just go our
separate ways."
The next thing I know, she got me
arrested for harassment.
Never been in trouble with
the law at all.
They said, "Look, we don't really
want to do this, but we have to."
But then she also rang my workplace
and told them that I was
a rapist and an abuser.
So I had to have a full
HR investigation as well.
Obviously fractured a lot of
work relationships.
She tried to cost me my job.
So do you think that
they initially believed her?
Yeah. Yeah, I do.
How does that fracture relationships
that you had there?
Just because people probably, maybe
viewed me in a different light.
And being a man, I kept so much
stuff away for fear of
what was hanging over me with
the whole police thing.
You know, it's that sense of, like,
"Nobody is going to believe me,"
you know?
Everyone at your job has only heard
you say good things about her.
Yeah. "Nobody's ever going to think
that this had happened to me."
It was a really, really,
like, difficult time period,
that immediate aftermath.
What was the darkest moment for you?
The lowest point was
I did get suicidal
..you know. I tried to walk out
in front of traffic a few times.
A few times?
Yeah. My mum and my stepdad
stopped me.
I contemplated taking an overdose.
I just I think at that moment
there was no hope, you know?
But, like, this is not right,
to put any of my family and that
through this, and I thought,
"No, I'm
"I'm going to get out of this,
"and I'm going to come out
the other side."
And it takes, I understand,
two years Yeah.
..to finally get her to court?
When I turned up,
she had the same handbag.
From Harrods?
Because it was still the whole,
you know,
"I've still got this control."
And I thought, "No, I'm going to go
there and I'm going to
"stand up on the stand
and I'm going to, you know,
"look her in the eye and say,
'This is what you did to me.'"
Wow. And I remember they read out
one message in particular,
and it said,
"I may not be able to control
certain aspects of my life,
"Gareth, but the one thing that
I can control is you,
"and I'm absolutely fucking
loving it."
Wow.
Her head dropped and she knew
at that point, you know,
the game was up.
I think he was very strong.
I think a lot of people
would've absolutely
had a breakdown, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah. It was so horrific, really.
You know, I've reconnected again
with friends, family.
Yeah, maybe put a bit too much more
weight on, you know?
But you're eating, you're eating!
I'm eating, yeah. I'm eating.
LAUGHTER
There will be a time I think
where I probably,
you know, will get back
into the dating game,
but I knew I needed to focus
on myself.
You know, prove that you can get
through this and you can come out,
you know, the other side.
I think your bravery that
you're showing here demonstrates
the importance of speaking about it.
These things hopefully will
help other people to recognise
the signs of abuse and escape a lot
quicker than I did maybe, you know?
We often think of domestic abuse
as one way.
Big angry man, small helpless woman.
But what Sarah did to Gareth
was she weaponised assumed guilt,
and she turned what is society's
blind spot against him.
And a lesson that we can all take
from Sarah and Gareth's story is
perhaps we should challenge
ourselves around our preconceived
notions on who survivors are.