‘Evil hubby a kettle of over me... blade deep Slowly poured boiling water then stuck a in my chest’
A WOMAN who endured years of abuse at the hands of her evil exhusband has urged other victims to speak out.
Hollie Woolford, 28, was stabbed and had scalding water poured all over her by Daniel Capstick-Bedson,
40, during eight years of torment.
At Christmas, calls to police reporting domestic attacks almost double.
So today, Hollie waives her anonymity to urge victims of abuse to ask for help over the festive season.
She saw Capstick-Bedson jailed for 16 years with the help of support charity Refuge.
She said: “I was very nearly one of those that gets murdered by their partner or former partner.
“Christmas was always a difficult time. One year the parsnips didn’t get delivered, which set him off. I’d just like to say to anyone else who is going through anything like this, you are not alone. And with the help of Refuge you will never ever be alone.”
Hollie was a 15-year-old schoolgirl when she met Capstick-Bedson, then 27.
She fell hard for him and they married shortly after her
18th birthday.
But Hollie found Capstick-Bedson
changed completely. Hollie said: “Before we got married I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.
“He bought me flowers, was romantic and wanted the same things out of life as I did.
“It started off as verbal and psychological abuse but then he started battering me with a rolling pin, then a vacuum cleaner pole.
“One day I was sat on the sofa when he came in with a kettle of boiling water and I actually thought, ‘No, he’s not going to do that’.
“He just poured it slowly in my lap. I just sat there and didn’t make a sound.”
Capstick-Bedson’s abuse escalated and one day he stabbed Hollie with a kitchen knife, piercing her lung.
Hollie said: “The day he stabbed me I thought I was going to die.
“He’d started beating me with a chair beforehand. I was
always doing something wrong even when I wasn’t. And then he just ran out into the kitchen and grabbed that knife.
“He could see that I was going to die. He had the phone in his hand and had dialled 999 but hadn’t pressed the call button.
“He said, ‘Right what are we going to say? You fell over in the kitchen while preparing food and the knife went into you, ok?’ I was like ‘Whatever’, and he was like, ‘No! Unless you agree to the story, then I’m not going to call them’.”
Capstick-Bedson, who worked as a pimp, was arrested but Hollie was so afraid, she refused to press charges and stayed for another two years.
It was only when she found out about the work of Refuge that Hollie started to turn her life around.
During sentencing at Lewes Crown Court in April, where Capstick-Bedson was found guilty of nine offences, judge Charles Kemp said: “You have demonstrated no remorse or empathy and you are unwilling to address your own behaviour. You are a manipulative and controlling man.”
Domestic abuse affects 25% of women and one in six men in their lifetime, according to the Office for National Statistics. On average, two women are murdered a week in their homes and 30 men die a year.