I had to bury my son after fleeing violent husband
AWOMAN who was shot by her violent estranged husband and had to bear the agony of their son’s suicide says offenders are “domestic terrorists”.
Rachel Williams asked husband Darren for a divorce, after suffering relentless abuse.
But in August 2011,Williams confronted his wife of 18 years and blasted her twice with a swan-off shotgun.
Bodybuilder Williams was later found hanged in woodland and Rachel’s youngest son, Jack, 16, hanged himself six weeks later.
In 2016 her story reduced the Duchess of Cornwall to tears.
Yesterday, Rachel, 47, said: “Abuse perpetrators need to start to be branded domestic terrorists.
“Every 2.3 days a woman is murdered in the UK through domestic violence, while 10,000 sufferers a year are contemplating suicide because of it. So much more needs to be done.
“Domestic violence is a bigger killer in women aged 16 to 44 than cancer, yet it isn’t given the recognition, nor treated like the epidemic it is.” Rachel met 6ft 7 in Williams in 1993 when she was 21 and a single mother to Josh, two.
He was initially charming and funny, but when Rachel was seven months pregnant, he lifted her by the throat until her lips turned blue.
Rachel finally escaped in July 2011, after Williams tried to strangle her then slit his wrists in front of Jack.
Williams, of Newport, South Wales, was arrested and bailed to appear in court.
But weeks later he burst into the hair salon where she worked and shot her.
He was later found hanged in woods near their marital home.
Six weeks after Rachel left hospital, Jack killed himself.
She said: “Jack is the tragedy. I should not have buried my son because I left my abuser.”
She has since written a book, The Devil At Home, is an ambassador for Welsh Women’s Aid and The Freedom Programme and is also a SafeLives Pioneer.
Now remarried, Rachel says: “Life is precious, but freedom is priceless.”