MUM’S COURT PLEA FOR I was cleared of murder after stabbing my abusive lover but I’m still fighting to get my kids back

brothels. The conviction was quashed in February after new laws were passed in 2015, making coercive control illegal.

Elizabeth says Sally – who is supported by her sons David, 31, and James, 35 – gave her invaluable support in jail.

She says: “Sally was lovely. I like knitting and she said ‘I know you’re a young girl but this will really help pass the time.’

“So I did that. In a lot of ways her case mirrors mine. All the women in there were really lovely, they were so supportive and nice.”

Elizabeth met Rayner in Belushi’s bar in Hammersmith, West London, in 2011. But a year later, his dark side emerged.

They had gone out to celebrate her sister’s 18th birthday and Rayner became angry after seeing the girls dancing together.

He turned over a table and was kicked out of Liquid nightclub in Uxbridge.

Outside, Elizabeth had to defend herself with her stiletto heels as he grabbed her by the throat until she passed out.

Rayner received an 18-month community order and was ordered to attend a domestic violence programme. Elizabeth took him back, but the assaults continued.

During a six-year relationship 25-year-old Rayner knocked her into a glass mirror, broke her jaw, bit her face and waterboarded her in the bath – pouring water over a cloth covering her face.

Despite everything, Elizabeth kept quiet. She had grown up in care and feared that telling police or other agencies would result in her own kids being taken away.

She explains: “I lived for the good moments, when I was happy, the kids were happy, and I tried to take away all of the bad stuff just for the good stuff.”

On the night of Rayner’s death