5 YEARS AFTER HELL WITH TV COMIC Just a Lit tle Creep Rock of A ges songs still give me horrible f lashbacks of Justin Lee Collins ’ campaign of emotional abuse

Collins had waged a “campaign of abuse” against Anna. They were played recordings in which he called her “f***ing slag” and a “dirty, vile whore” and said: “When you are out with me you look at the ground, the tree, any inanimate object but not any other human being, you slag”.

After the trial, Collins went on to host his weekly FUBAR radio show and was back on screen as a Showcase TV host last year, while Anna’s life was left in tatters after her court ordeal.

“I don’t regret it because the jury believed me,” she says. “Yet the trial was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. His lawyer ripped me to shreds. She claimed I’d blackmailed him. I even got online abuse from people who said I was after money.

“But it wasn’t money. I didn’t sue him. I just wanted everyone to know what I’d gone through.” Anna, who lives in a council flat in Hertfordshire, has only just started thinking about working again – by trying to slowly do some public relations for her singer brother Alex over the last three weeks.

“I’m only doing a few free hours to help him as he’s got an album out in June,” she adds. “It’s making me feel worthwhile again, even though the PTSD has not gone. Certain things trigger it and you get a flashback.

Petrified

“Just looking at my cat Jak is a reminder because he never liked Justin.

“And if I hear songs from Rock Of Ages, the musical Justin appeared in, I feel petrified and panicky all over again. I avoid him when he’s on TV.”

Collins rose to stardom after two years on XFM radio. He did companion shows for Strictly Come Dancing and Channel 4’s The Games, before spending three years on the Friday Night Project with Alan Carr. He landed his own ITV programme, The Justin Lee Collins Show in 2009.

Last December, comic Carr broke his silence on Anna’s case, saying: “That wasn’t the Justin I knew. He was obviously in a toxic relationship.”tionship. Anna is surprised how quicklyy people forgive and forget. She says: “I think celebritiesies are seen as untouchable. e.

“I saw fans writing about Chris Brown saying, ‘I know he beat up Rihanna but I still fancy him.’ Domestic vio- lence doesn’t seem to be taken seriously. I find thathat upsetting.”

Since her nightmare Anna has had hundreds of emails from men and women asking for help over abuse.

“After the case I needed to get away and went to Fuerteventura in the Canaries,” she says. “I went on a day trip up a mountain and a woman recognised me. She said her friend was going through emotional abuse and she read about me and decided to leave her partner. If I saved one person then it was worth sp speaking out, without a doubt.” Ar Around 1.2 million women in England and Wales su suffer domestic violence e each year. Every week, two are killed. Now whenever Anna is app proached, she directs people to the National Domestic Violence H Helpline. It helped her esc escape her hell with Collins. H He stopped her using the internet but with a neighbour’s help she found a helpline number and called from a payphone. “They don’t tell you what to do, they listen to you. They give you options,” she says. “And they told me what was happening to me was controlling and dangerous.”

Now Anna is doing voluntary work with new firm Safe Girl, which makes safety packs containing rape alarms.

After all she’s been through, is she ready for love again? “I’m wary of trusting someone,” she says. “At first Justin seemed the best boyfriend in the world. He was charming and loving.

“So at the moment I live on my own in a little flat and I have three cats. But I’d really like to find love now.”

A spokesman for Justin said he had no comment to make on the story. Anna was not paid for this interview.