Under his spell
I thought Ash was charming. I was wrong...
My phone beeped and I couldn’t deny my heart missed a beat.
I blushed as I read the message. Fancy a meal tonight? My treat!
Hours later, I found myself sitting in a swish Thai restaurant with Imraan Hasham, who went by the nickname Ash.
We’d met on a night out just the previous evening.
He was 20, three years older than me. And we just clicked. Ash was funny, charming and attentive. He seemed to really like me. The next day, he collected me from where I work. We drove to the seaside for a long, romantic walk.
Soon we were spending most of our time together.
I could feel myself slowly falling in love. My family was wary. ‘Too much too soon,’ they said. ‘You shouldn’t get in too deep.’ But I was head over heels. Ash ran a chauffeur company. ‘I’ve got Rolls Royces and all sorts of fancy cars,’ he boasted. ‘I’m really successful. If you want to know more, Google me.’
I really wasn’t fussed about cars so I didn’t bother.
A few weeks after we started dating, in February 2016, I went out to a club with my friends. Later, Ash turned up.
I was just chatting when suddenly I was aware that Ash was glaring at me.
In the next minute, his hands were round my throat and I was struggling to breathe!
My friends dragged him off as I gasped and choked back tears.
‘You were talking to other men,’ Ash snapped. ‘You made a fool of me.’ I was in shock. But then Ash acted as if nothing had happened.
‘You should leave him, Rachael,’ my friends urged later.
But, by then, Ash had already convinced me that it was a minor tiff, and that it was my fault anyway.
He just had this way of getting in my head.
Little by little, I felt I couldn’t trust anyone except Ash.
Months on I moved in with him, never saw any friends.
At times, we were happy. But we had terrible bust-ups, too. When we argued, he would scream that I was ‘a walking STD’ and a ‘low-life slut’. Once, just before we were about to go out, Ash pointed at the low-cut top I had on.
‘Cover your t*ts up!’ he spat. ‘You’re mine. Nobody else should look at you!’
At first, I thought Ash loved me so much and this was his way of showing it. But, slowly, I began to realise that he was controlling, not charming.
I wasn’t allowed out of the house on my own, and I had to keep the blinds closed so people couldn’t see me in the house.
And whenever we argued he wouldn’t let me leave the room – I even had to ask permission if I wanted to go to the toilet, because Ash would accuse me of texting people for help in the loo.
It was crazy. And yet I was too scared to leave him.
If I tried to walk out, he’d threaten to get a gun and shoot me or smash me in the face with a bottle.
And this February, after a big row because I wanted to see my mum, Ash threw me onto the bed and tried to smother me with his hands. I thought I might die. Afterwards, I knew I had to get out. To save my life.
Packing a few belongings, I sneaked out, called the police.
I stayed with relatives overnight – and, next morning, I went to catch the bus to work.
But as I waited at the bus stop, Ash pulled up at the kerbside. ‘Get in!’ he ordered. I didn’t want a scene in the street. So, shaking with fear, I got into the car.
He drove off at speed, and I began screaming.
As I grabbed my phone to call for help, he pulled over and bit my hand to make me drop it. Then, he hurled it to the floor. I was hysterical.
What now?
Then a woman came out of the house we were in front of. She must’ve heard the commotion,
He convinced me it was my fault, had this way of getting in my head
as she opened my car door.
‘Is everything OK?’ she asked. ‘I think you should come with me.’ Ash didn’t stop me. The lady was so kind that I burst into tears. She took me inside her house and she called the police. Ash was arrested. I tried to rebuild my life with the help of counselling.
In April, Imraan Hasham appeared at Manchester Magistrates Court.
He admitted controlling and coercive behaviour, two counts of assault by beating, criminal damage and a public order offence.
I learned that Hasham had a dark past, having served an eight-and-a-half-year stretch over a terrifying bank raid, during which a woman cashier was kidnapped at gunpoint.
He also had previous convictions for criminal damage and affray.
Plus, he was actually 34 – 14 years older than he’d told me.
I felt more grateful than ever that I was free from him. Then Hasham was sentenced. His defence said his business was ‘up in the air’ because of his arrest. So he was given a 26-week sentence, suspended for 18 months and was banned from contacting me for two years.
He was also ordered to pay £500 compensation for breaking my phone, and £1,265 costs. That’s all. For all the hurt, humiliation, pain and fear he caused me, it seems like no punishment at all.
I learned that he had been involved in a terrifying bank raid