Student: My ‘choke ordeal’ during sex with Grace’s alleged murderer
BED Defendant’s home
A STUDENT says she feared she would be killed during sex with the man accused of murdering Brit backpacker Grace Millane.
The woman wept as she told a jury she could not breathe when the man put all his weight on her face during a sex act they engaged in at his apartment in Auckland, New Zealand.
The “terrified” woman added that after failing to get free, she pretended to pass out but the man, 27, still did not shift. He eventually released her and acted as nothing was wrong, she said.
It is alleged that a month later on December 1, the eve of her 22nd birthday, the man strangled Grace of Wickford, Essex, at the same apartment. The defendant, not named for legal reasons, claimed Grace’s death was an accident after she asked him to choke her.
The trial in Auckland continues.
Grace Millane if
Stacey Solomon is a refreshing dose of reality in a social media world where yummy mummies with pristine homes show off flat tums seconds after giving birth and find newborns a cinch.
The Loose Women star’s posts are unedited and unapologetic about the realities and rigours of motherhood.
With neither the time nor the inclination to edit her photos, she simply shows herself as she really is – and her posts are all the better for it.
Stacey, 30, says: “If I have my picture taken in a bikini on a beach and I don’t look perfect, there’s nothing I can do.
“I’m not going to pose again because that’s just the way that I look. And I’m not going to sit there and airbrush them – I just don’t have that time or energy.
“Being real is the only way I know how to be. I spent a long time not liking myself growing up, and there’s no value in that. I look at myself and I think I’m pretty and I’ve got a nice body and there’s nothing wrong with the way I look. I don’t want to be ashamed of it.”
Her ability to tell it like it is, with intelligence and humour, is just one of the reasons she is still a household name a decade after coming third on The X Factor and becoming queen of the I’m a Celebrity jungle the following year.
And her down-to-earth attitude includes being honest about motherhood. In her nappysized post-natal pants or babytum bikini, she is the champion of all mums who feel overwhelmed with exhaustion as well as with love.
“People make motherhood look like a breeze, but it’s so hard,” says the mum-of-three, who has sons Zachary, 11, Leighton, seven, and fivemonth-old Rex.
“I was worried sick about trying to breastfeed Rex. It was abysmal – the whole thing was horrific and I was really emotional and upset. Scrolling through my Instagram I saw a mummy blogger who was still breastfeeding her baby after one year.
“And I just sobbed. I thought, ‘How is she doing it? How? How has she got this far?’ I looked around for other people who were really struggling and I just couldn’t find them. And I thought, ‘What the hell? Why am I the only person out there who just wants to hide in a hole and cry?’.”
When the nation’s favourite girl-nextdoor fell in love with cheeky chappy Joe Swash, 37, four years ago, there was genuine warmth towards them.
That sense of familiarity from strangers is touching. But recently Stacey was swamped with advice from people scolding her for weaning Rex too early. Was that annoying?
“People are always really nice,” says Stacey. “When people say, ‘I feel like we know you’, I think, ‘You probably do – we are who we are and there’s not much more to us’. But sometimes it’s hard when people tell you what they think you should do. I always have to have a word with myself because most people
STACEY SOLOMON SAYS SHE AND JOE ARE JUST LIKE THEIR PUBLIC IMAGE aren’t doing it to be horrible or catch me out. They’re doing it because they think it’s the right thing to do.
“With Rex’s weaning, that’s why I got a nutritionist involved. Because it’s a massive responsibility having Instagram.
“I don’t want to encourage people to do anything that isn’t right or is dangerous. Deep down I know it’s not malicious. I know they’re concerned but I don’t think they have reason to be.”
Stacey is the woman you hope to meet at a baby-and-toddler group as her honesty will reassure any new mum. Although she looks perfectly glossy and sounds like the voice of reason on Loose Women, she also shares her struggles.
She says: “The best thing about being
When people tell us, ‘I feel like we know you’ I think ‘You do – we are who we are’