Starting over after years of abuse
DOMESTIC ABUSE VICTIM URGES OTHERS TO BREAK THE CYCLE
SHE claims she endured years of torment at the hands of her violent ex.
But now Louise Miller is starting her life again at the age of 34.
Ian Gordon Dixon subjected Louise to regular verbal and physical assaults throughout their relationship, she claims.
He refused to let her have a mobile phone and would hit Louise on parts of her body other people could not see, the mum said.
Yet in public, Louise, of Ryton, Gateshead, said Dixon projected an entirely different persona as a friendly family man.
However, the thug is now behind bars after Louise finally found the courage to call police after his most frightening attack.
And after a court granted an indefinite restraining order banning him from contacting her, Louise said she is finally able to start living the life she would have had if she had never met him.
She said: “I do feel like I’m free of him now. It was a big relief. We were together 18 years.
“You would think when you had been with someone so many years it would be hard but I have been so much happier.
“I feel like I have got the strength to start over.”
Louise met Dixon in a pub while out with family and they moved in together after a whirlwind romance.
“I was 16 when I met him when I was meeting my family in a pub in Newcastle,” she explained.
“He was fine when I first met him and we moved in together after three months.”
But Louise claims after a couple of years together, Dixon began to show his true colours.
Louise said she was attacked and he accused her of cheating on him.
“In the beginning he was very loving and caring but the violence started a couple of years after we got together,” she said.
“Anything could set him off. It was never anything major.
“It’s went on for a long time but he never used to hit my face.
“He always said he was sorry and I believed him. He was fine when he wasn’t being violent.”
Louise said her ex-partner’s behaviour left her feeling more and more isolated.
She said: “The violence got worse over the last couple of years. He got more obsessive and more abusive.”
In October last year, Louise said she called the police and Dixon was arrested.
However while on bail, she claims he returned to her home and launched a violent attack during which she feared she would be seriously hurt.
“In October he beat me up pretty bad, it got out of hand and I called the police. I had just decided this is enough,” she said.
Dixon, 43, of no fixed abode, was convicted of assaulting occasioning actual bodily harm and sentenced to nine months in prison, at Newcastle Crown Court in January.
He was also handed a three-month concurrent sentence for assaulting a 16-year-old.
And while Louise is fearful of what might happen after his release, she hopes the life-long restraining order will keep her safe so she can get on with her life.
“I want people to realise what he’s done. A lot of people just see him as the person he is in the street, but that’s not how he was in the house,” she added. “I do feel like I have got a fresh start, but I’m still worried he will come looking for us.”
And Louise is now urging other victims to get out of their abusive relationship as soon as possible.
She said: “Don’t think twice about phoning the police the first time it happens, just phone them and get out as soon as you can. I feel like I have wasted so much of my life when I could have been happy.”