Domestic violence victim's plea: My ex stabbed me so why is he still free to make life hell
Every time there is a knock at her door, Sacha Williams-Rowe feels a chill run down her spine.
It’s a feeling of terror she should no longer have to suffer after the three years of hell she has been through.
But Sacha, 32, knows only too well that it could be HIM on the other side of that door – the crazed ex-boyfriend who stabbed her in front of their children and left her in a coma in 2010.
Vicious Lloyd Lothian, 37, was sent to jail and handed a five-year restraining order to keep him away from Sacha when he got out.
British justice done and dusted, she thought.
But it didn’t end there. Thanks to a shocking failure by that same justice system to monitor the violent convicts that it turns loose.
“I am worried the powers-that-be will only take my case seriously when they are investigating a murder,” says Sacha, a mum of four.
“I feel abandoned by the people who should be looking after me.”
And here’s why. Sacha was in the hall of her new house in February getting changed after a bike ride. Life was feeling good again.
She had moved away from the home where Lothian stabbed her in the stomach with a kitchen knife, leaving her close to death with a horrific wound.
He had accused her of seeing another man while she was simply out getting a takeaway.
He was originally charged with attempted murder but got only 15 months when the prosecution at his retrial accepted a plea of unlawful wounding.
Sacha even spent a week in prison after refusing to give evidence, which she claimed was too stressful.
When she knew he was out she still she felt safe.
He didn’t know where she lived and there was that restraining order meaning he could not come within 50 metres of her.
Then came the knock at the door as she hung up her cycling gear. She opened it... and the nightmare came crashing back.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she says. “It was Lloyd standing there.
"I took a step back from him without saying anything and he walked in to the house and closed the door behind him.”
He had found out where she lived through Facebook and immediately began grilling trembling Sacha about her personal life, demanding to know if she was seeing anyone.
“He said he wanted to stamp me out and really hurt me,” says Sacha.
After calming him she made an excuse of needing the toilet and ran for the front door.
She says: “It was like a horror movie when you are scrabbling around for the lock trying to open it.”
Sacha raced to a neighbour’s and police were called. Lothian got four months for breaching the order on May 17.
But he is back on the streets again because of time served on remand.
Now Sacha fears that failures by the courts, social services, probation and prosecutors have put her life in danger.
“I am speaking out because more needs to be done to protect me from this man,” she says.
“And I worry about how many other victims of domestic abuse are being abandoned in this way.”
Campaigners and experts have backed Sacha’s brave decision to speak out.
They warn that failures to monitor violent criminals released from prison across the UK are leaving their victims and members of the public at risk.
Recent figures show two people a week in England and Wales are killed by a current or ex-partner.
Sacha feels as if there is no escape from Lothian’s shadow. She is angry that he is allowed to live in a house just 20 minutes from where her mother and family live in Slough, Berks.
She says: “I have moved. I have complied with all the plans set out by social services, police and everybody but at the end of the day I am the one who suffers.
“Why does he get free run to go anywhere he likes? I asked if he could be banned from the whole of that area so I could see my mother easily but I was told it was too difficult.
"The police have been very supportive but it seems the whole system is against me.
"He should never have been allowed to come to my home.”
A spokesman for charity Women’s Aid said: “Perpetrators of domestic violence can be extremely manipulative and charming, not only towards the abused partner but also to police or professionals in the legal system.
“Every police and probation officer needs domestic violence training so that they understand how to best protect women and child victims.”
In the meantime Sacha lives in hope that the day will come when she will no longer dread a knock at the door.
Call for violence probe
The National Stalking Advocacy Service has demanded a public inquiry into violence against women after Sacha’s revelations about her ex-boyfriend.Co-director Harry Fletcher said of her case: “Sadly this is not unusual. In a lot of domestic violence cases, when the man has finished his probation he then regresses.
“They behave themselves while they are under supervision, but once that is done they go back to how they were.
This man is clearly a danger to this woman and he should have been dealt with properly the first time.”
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