Woman speaks out to help others
Torture victim courageously speaks out to help protect others from monstrous ex-partner
Awoman who was raped and tortured by a man who claimed to love her has spoken about her ordeal.
Clare Robb was repeatedly burned with cigarettes and locked up for days by her former partner, David Smith.
She has bravely waived her right to anonymity in the hope of improving prosecutions against domestic abusers.
Clare still suffers flashbacks from being tortured, imprisoned and raped by Smith, 31, who she was in a relationship with between 2010 and 2015.
Although Smith was last week found guilty of 14 charges, including attempted murder and eight counts of rape against Clare and another partner, she says she cannot allow herself to feel safe until he is jailed.
And she is angry that her failed attempts at getting justice in court, many times over their relationship, allowed Smith the freedom to go and attack another woman, in a house just 10 minutes away from where he tortured and abused her.
Clare, from Glasgow, said: “I can’t get my life back on track until he is put away. If it was up to me, he would never be let out.
“He should never have been allowed on the streets after what he did to me in the first place.
“When I found out about the other woman he attacked, I couldn’t believe it. If I ever meet her I just want her to understand she is not alone.
“And I’m sorry that I couldn’t stop him before. I am so sorry.”
Clare, 42, was first attacked by Smith in 2011, having started a relationship with him the previous year when they met online.
She said: “After that first kicking, it happened more often.
“Every other day at times. If I tried to leave he would threaten to kill me, bomb my family’s homes, kill my family. I was trapped.
“He would go berserk. He killed two of my cats, and poked another’s eye out with a metal pole. How could somebody do that?”
Manipulative Smith wouldn’t allow Clare to go to hospital for her injuries after he attacked her, and if they did deal with authorities, he warned her to “get the story straight” and lie about what had happened.
She said: “He put my head through a glass table once because I told him I wanted to leave.
“Another time I had a gash in my hand because he threw a table at me. He wanted to superglue it instead of taking me to hospital.”
The violence escalated further when Smith locked Clare up for four days without food or water.
Clare said: “He locked me in a bedroom without any food or toilet facilities, and cut the wires to the TV and electrics. I had nothing in that room and I was terrified. I thought I was going to die.
“If I didn’t die I had it in my head that I was going to do it myself, just to get away from him.
“Another time he tied me down and put fag burns all over my thighs – saying I was a reject, damaged goods, nobody would want me.
“The only thing that kept me going was thinking about my children. I used to self- harm because it took away the pain of him mentally abusing me, bringing me down, raping me.”
Clare said Smith would phone the police himself after many of his violent outbursts, claiming he had injured his partner in an attempt to stop her from harming herself.
She said: “He said he had
– Clare Robb on abusive ex
He put my head through a glass table once because I told him I wanted to leave
battered me to stop me from self-harming, to protect me.
“Somehow he was believed, or at least nothing was done.
“When I did eventually take him to court, he pleaded not guilty or he would not turn up and it kept delaying the process so nothing happened.”
Eventually, after a particularly violent attack in a public park, Clare left Smith for good, and is convinced if she hadn’t she would no longer be alive.
She has been helped by Glasgow Women’s Aid to rebuild her life, but still struggles.
Clare said: “The amount of beatings I got, I would be bright orange with all the make- up I wore to try to cover it up. Now I can’t wear it. I don’t like it. I feel like I’m hiding again.
“It took me ages to get mirrors back in the house as I could see him in the mirror, smirking, and my face all bruised.
“It’s really hard, as I’m still living in the house where it all happened. I’ve tried to get moved but they said they won’t be able to move me.
“I can’t sleep in that room, I have to sleep on a mattress in the living room as it brings back all the memories if I go in there.
“Until I see him sentenced and in jail, I won’t be able to relax.
“I hope they put him away for a long time this time, so he can’t hurt anyone else.”