Trapped in a living hell of violent and cruel abuse
AT only 23, she is at the centre of one of Scotland’s worst domestic abuse cases – bombarded with 5,000 phone calls and abusive texts, stopped from seeing her dying mother, and subjected to a horrifying catalogue of violence.
During a two-year campaign of intimidation, Chloe Hood was regularly locked in her flat, beaten and had her clothes ripped to prevent her going out.
Her attacker’s cruelty included forcing her to hold a python to her face, ordering her to eat a sock and scalding her on a radiator.
Next week, her tormentor Stuart McEwan, 26, will be sentenced after admitting a catalogue of domestic violence which a sheriff described as among the most shocking he had heard of in 12 years on the bench.
Today, speaking for the first time about her ordeal, Miss Hood tells how her once-loving relationship turned into a living hell, leaving her isolated from friends and family – and robbing her of precious final days with her mother, who died from cancer in 2014.
She told The Scottish Mail on Sunday: ‘I can never forgive him. I hate him. I will never understand how he could deliberately try to cause another human being – someone he claimed to love – so much pain and suffering.’
New police figures show domestic violence – dubbed Scotland’s ‘secret shame’ – still justifies its place at the top of the political agenda, with 58,408 recorded incidents last year, up 706, a rise of 1.2 per cent on 2015-16.
A new Bill published in March aims to strengthen laws against those who psychologically abuse their partners and will make Scotland one of the first countries to criminalise such behaviour.
McEwan has been warned by Sheriff Alistair Watson that he faces jail when he is sentenced on July 4 at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court.
Miss Hood said the proposed new law was a step in the right direction towards protecting victims.
She added: ‘It’s too late for me but I hope others will find the courage to come forward sooner. A lot of the abuse I suffered was psychological, which is harder to prove. The new law means there will be no escape now for abusers.’
Miss Hood, a petite 5ft 2in, first met 6ft 7in McEwan through friends in his native Maybole, Ayrshire. McEwan, a power linesman, worked in England and Wales, returning to Scotland at weekends.
The pair kept in touch but after two months, Miss Hood, from Galston, Ayrshire, noticed signs of change from a man who until then had shown her only tenderness.
‘I used to be a person who wasn’t afraid to stick up for myself. Bit by bit, he knocked the confidence out of me until he took over my life. He was a real Jekyll and Hyde. When he was bad, he was evil.’
She added: ‘I left him a number of times but always went back because he promised to change. My family and friends were so disgusted in the end, they stopped talking to me. I was totally isolated.’
Just before Christmas 2013, McEwan threw a sock he had been wearing into her meal, telling her to ‘eat it and be very grateful’.
A few months later, he ordered her to hold a snake in front of her face, knowing she was terrified of reptiles. As she cried with fear he threatened to hit her if she refused.
In July 2014, when her terminally ill mother lay in a Glasgow hospital, McEwan drove Miss Hood there twice, then refused to let her out of his car, saying her mother deserved to die. ‘I was heartbroken,’ said Miss Hood. ‘I will never get that time back with her.’
On her mother’s final night, she defied him to stay by her bedside. Miss Hood said: ‘I’m grateful I was with her, but he was furious.’
Soon afterwards, McEwan’s job led to him moving to Cumbria and, still hoping for change, she went too. After she got a job in a call centre, he ripped her clothes and locked her in their flat to stop her going to work. She often turned up in the office with bruises on her face and a black eye.
In May 2015 McEwan picked up a live locust – feed for his pet lizard – held her mouth shut and pushed the wriggling insect up her nose.
Miss Hood eventually confided in her manager and doctor, who advised her to go to the police. Officers examined phone records before arresting McEwan, and he was found to have made 3,748 controlling calls or voicemails and sent 1,749 texts.
In court, McEwan admitted a string of charges covering a period from August 2013 to June 2015, including repeatedly punching, kicking and slapping her, holding her against a radiator, forcing a live locust up her nose and down her jeans, preventing her from visiting her mother and her work, attempting to control her finances, damaging her clothing and detaining her against her will.
Miss Hood said: ‘He’s never said sorry and is as much of a danger as he always was. I hope he gets a lengthy sentence to protect other women.’
‘Bit by bit, he knocked confidence out of me’