‘I’m scared to look out of a window because he stalked me’
AWOMAN kept prisoner by her boyfriend who threatened to kill them both “like Romeo and Juliet” now lives in constant fear of seeing him again.
Sophie Crockett, 26, has said her poor mental and physical health has reduced her to an “old lady” after struggling to come to terms with the actions of her former partner Simon Tibble.
On September 12, 2013, Tibble, now 39, pleaded guilty to falsely imprisoning Sophie for four days in June 2012.
His arrest came after years of threats and controlling behaviour towards his former partner – to the point where he forbade her from leaving the house and accompanied her to the bathroom.
Now, despite being made subject to an indefinite hospital order, his former girlfriend has been told Tibble now lives 20 miles away from her after being discharged.
Sophie, from Mountain Ash, said: “All the stress that man put me through has finally taken its toll on my body. I am only 26 years old yet feel like an old lady and my mental health has deteriorated.
“Yet the man who did this to me is fine, out and living just 20 miles away.
“I find it difficult to get out my bed but I can’t sleep because I am plagued with nightmares and flashbacks.
“I’m too scared to look out of my window because that’s where he used to stalk me and I can’t go outside, not even in the garden. I’m a prisoner in my own home.”
At age 17, Sophie met Tibble while canvassing for a political party. Seven years her elder, she said his fixation with her began immediately when he would turn up at her front door.
She said: “The first time I met him outside of meetings he started holding my hand and standing really close to me.
“I felt uncomfortable as I didn’t know him, but because of my social anxieties I didn’t say anything.
“He also turned up at my house that I inhabited with my parents without me telling him my address. He turned up with ice creams.
“It frightened me but again I kept
silent.” For Sophie, the situation started to snowball when, with no friends to turn to, she began to ignore the warnings of her family.
Tibble started demanding to wash her and feed her like a child – telling her to wear a bow on top of her head.
Sophie, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, said: “After a few months he pressured me to move in together so we rented a semi-detached cottage that he named the Magnetic Cottage as he used to say we were both sides of the magnet. He was north and I was south.
“He didn’t have a bed but an airbed and because I used to be cold he used to make me sleep on the wooden floorboards.
“He insisted on coming into the bathroom with me when I needed the toilet.
“If I refused he would sit me down on the sofa and give me a lecture on ‘togetherness’.
“He would write down these lectures on a large mirror that was hanging in the living room and he would spend hours making me listen to him.
“I was not allowed to wear anything to bed; he would not allow it. I needed to be pressed up against him all night otherwise my life wouldn’t be worth living.
“I had a puppy given to us, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel called Star.
“He used her as a tool against me, stopping me from leaving saying that otherwise he would hurt her.”
On one occasion, Sophie said she woke to find herself faced with a knife and told her it would be the day she died. She said: “I woke up at around 7am and he told me, ‘Today is the day we die’.
“He then left the bed too quick for me to climb out of the window and came back upstairs with the knife.
“He said, ‘We must now be like Romeo and Juliet, we will never leave this room but be together forever.’”
For Sophie things came to a breaking point when Tibble forbade her from leaving the house for four days.
For the teenager, the only chance of escape came when her boyfriend became distracted with a text she had received from her mother.
She said: “He forbade me to leave the house, hiding my shoes.
“[After] a text off mammy, he texts back pretending to be me. While he is distracted I go into the kitchen. see the door is left ajar, creep out silently and run for my life in the rain barefoot.”
Appearing in Merthyr Crown Court, Tibble, of Ebenezer Street, Aberdare, was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order.
Since then, Sophie, who was 19 when the two-year relationship ended, has been told her former partner lives in south Wales after being discharged following a mental health tribunal.
She said: “I’m confused, my head is like a swirling black hole with all sorts of different thoughts.
“My physical body is also suffering – my appetite has gone, I am fatigued and I have lost pleasure in everything.
“I feel nauseated and suffer from tension headaches.
“I live in constant fear and the severe PTSD I experience has such a debilitating effect on my life.
“I have started to self-harm again and to pick my skin. It is an anxiety reliever.”
■ If you or someone you know is affected by domestic violence, call the Live Fear Freehelpline on 0808 80 10 800.