OFFENDERS USING DATING WEBSITES
TOUGHEN CLARE’S LAW
for months then start a row for no r eason which once resulted in him grabbing me by the neck.
“Another time he threw a computer tablet at my head. He controlled every aspect of my life. When I met him I was a confident single mum but my self-esteem plummeted.
“If anyone else was sitting here telling this story I’d think they were crazy not to just walk out the door but now I know how easy it is to fall into the abuse trap.”
In January 2016 Marianne had a wakeup call when the neighbours complained and social services, worried about her kids, intervened. She agreed to go into a PEOPLE already have the right to ask police if their partner may pose a risk to under Clare’s Law.
Close friends and family can also ask on their behalf but Marianne and Tracey want the law to go further.
They are calling for a national, al, easily accessible register of offenders available to all – including the firms behind dating ng agencies.
Marianne praised Claire’s Law aw but believes only those already y under threat will go to the police. She said: “If we had an refuge but was horrified to find it was only round the corner from the home she shared with Ward. He started sending her emails begging for them to get back together. Marianne nearly said yes. He began stalking her and promised to change but in February she was tipped off he was seeing someone else he had met on Plenty of Fish. Marianne said: “I couldn’t believe it because I hadn’t seen Tracey for years. “It turns out she’d sent a picture of her new boyfriend to a mutual friend of ours on Facebook who said ‘I think I know him and he’s a bad ‘un.’” Tracey feels she got open register, available to everyone, you’d know who you were dating before you let them into your life. “We’d like anyone on that register to be restricted from using dating websites with a 28-day prison recall if they try to join an a agency.” C Clare’s Law was introduced in En England and Wales in 2014. It is named after mum-of-two C Clare Wood, 36, murdered in February 2009 by George Appleton, who she met on Fa Facebook but had dumped four months earlier. off lightly compared to Marianne but still experienced Ward’s twisted attempts to control her.
Tr a c e y said: “When our friend told me about all these things he was doing to Marianne he said she was the jealous type and was trying to get him back.
Bizarre
“He totally manipulated me. He was trying to play me off against Marianne, once calling her in front of me to tell her I was the best thing since sliced bread and so much better than she was. It was silly when I look back.
“We dated for a couple of months but I started to get the sense he was hiding something. Then his behaviour started to become increasingly pretty bizarre.
“With Ward, I had no idea about his criminal past and while we were together he ended up gaining g access to my y bank account, laptop and even pawned off things belonging ging to my son.
“Stuff starting disappearing in the house, including ding my purse and my son’s computer mputer games.
“I found them m hidden behind the bath panel. anel.
“It was then I asked him to leave. I was a victim ctim of emotional abuse but ut I had a lucky escape compared mpared to Marianne.” By April 2016, Marianne had moved back home a f t e r Wa r d agreed to move out. But he started following her again and, when she refused to engage with him, he called her and threatened to burn down the house of her pregnant daughter Devon, 18. Police found him lying in the dark on her sofa with a knife. Police were forced to use a spray to subdue him. Plenty of Fish has faced controversy after several cases in which people have used the site to make contact with people against whom they subsequently commit criminal acts. In February last year, Scott Lazenby, 27, was jailed seven years for raping a woman he met on the site and molesting another in front of her son. A month earlier Ryan Schofield was jailed after attacking eight women over a seven years after dating them. About 12 million Brits have used the site since it was launched in 2003. Great Gri Grimsby MP Melanie Onn said: “The “Th concerns Tracey and Mariann Marianne raise are really important and if adopted could save w women from getting into relationships r with predatory, violent men. The more info information publicly available to women the better.”