‘He told me I was paranoid, I was psycho’
EMMA Murphy filmed the emotional video of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Usanga as her son Xavier played behind her. This is an edited transcript: ‘I’VE been thinking long and hard, and contemplating whether to post this video… I finally decided ... that… I need to do this for me and my children.
‘I’ve been in a relationship for three and a half years with a guy I thought was the love of my life… Unfortunately, last year, I found out he cheated on me with one of his clients… I loved him so much that I tried to forgive him and I gave him another chance. [But] I found out he did it again.
‘…So I went to the gym and I confronted him, and he denied it of course. When I threw his phone, he punched me in the face. And it wasn’t the first time. Last year, he split my head open.
‘At an event prior to that, he punched me and I had a black eye. And for the last year and a half, I’ve been told I’m paranoid, I’m psycho, my insecurities will kill me.
‘… I finally realised that, no, this is not acceptable. No man has any right to put his hand on a woman. I’ve had the courage to walk away and to go straight to the people who love me. So now I’m a single mother-of-two… Our lives are torn apart. And they’re going to know their daddy hit their mammy.
‘So if anyone has gone through anything similar... you need... to find the courage and get away from it. More often than not, if it happens once – it will happen again.’