School teacher who says: A lesbian fling has destroyed my life
A secret affair. A f ight on her parents’ doorstep. And the court case that left high-f lying Alexa on the brink of suicide
We’d go out shopping... then one thing led to another
ALL her life Alexa Collier has tried to play by the rules. A goodlooking child from a conventional, loving family, she worked hard and the rewards followed. First came a glamorous life as a professional netball player, then a dream teaching job. A top-of-the-range Mercedes was parked on the drive – until 12 months ago, that is.
For today, that carefully built reputation lies in ruins, her life turned upside down. Last month, Manchester Crown Court cleared her of an assault so serious she was charged with grievous bodily harm.
Yet, although she has been cleared of any wrongdoing whatsoever, to the wider world Alexa Collier is a coward, the woman who infamously broke her lesbian lover’s jaw rather than tell her parents she was bisexual. So colourful was the allegation against her, she now fears she might never live it down.
Thanks to the claims of former girlfriend Nicola Lees, Alexa lost her job as head of netball at £12,000-a-year Withington Girls’ School in Manchester. She lost many of her friends, and nearly her life, too, after being driven to the brink of suicide.
Now, Alexa, 26, says it is time for her side of the story to be heard – how she was forced to live with the constant worry that she would be outed to her parents as bisexual, the true victim of a toxic relationship.
She is also angry at the justice system, saying the police did nothing when she reported Miss Lees to them on three occasions for harassment.
‘Throughout the relationship I lived with the threat of her telling my mum about us. It’s bad enough to reveal a toxic relationship to your parents but when that is your first lesbian experience it’s even harder.
‘I wish I’d never met her. Not just because of the altercation and losing my job but because she has sucked the complete life and soul out of me.
‘If you type victim of domestic abuse into Google, I know damn well I’d meet the criteria.’
What exactly happened in that excruciating confrontation in front of Alexa’s mother in July last year remains a matter of profound disagreement between the former lovers. The verdict of the court could not have been clearer yet Nicola Lees continues to dispute pretty much every aspect of Alexa’s story and she continues to stand by the account of events she gave in court.
She told the jury: ‘I went to her house with the intention to sort everything out and speak to her mum. I am a nice person and everything needed to come out that we were in a relationship.’
The two had first met in 2011, although at the time, says Alexa, she had no clue that she might be interested in women. They had come across each other at the sports centre in Oldham where Nicola was a development officer and Alexa a netball coach and umpire.
Alexa had played netball professionally until she was 22 before winning a double scholarship to study PE, sport and dance at Liverpool John Moores University. ‘She was the first girl I’d ever been with,’ she says. ‘Until then I had no suspicions about my sexuality. I became attracted to her. It just happened. We’d go out shopping, do normal things. One thing led to another. She was actually a really nice person then.’
The two grew closer and at one point, temporarily homeless, Nicola spent several months living under the same roof as Alexa and her parents. But soon a darker side emerged: when she didn’t get her own way, says Alexa, Nicola could become ‘a vile monster’.
In court, Alexa produced hundreds of A4 pages of text and WhatsApp messages sent over a two-week period in which Nicola had called her a ‘fat ugly b**ch’, ‘ **** ’ and a d**e.
‘It’s just a snippet of what I went through,’ Alexa explains. ‘She once phoned me 300 times in a day. I changed my number three times. Every time I blocked her she’d call me from a no caller-ID number.
‘This is all on record with the police. Harassment is two unwanted contacts. There’s 298 more than that. The police did nothing.
‘After the nasty messages there were apologies so you forgive, but now, I’ve picked the relationship apart and know it wasn’t love. When you’re in it you don’t think.’
But worse than this, as she said in court, was the constant threat of Nicola telling Alexa’s parents about their relationship.
‘Me and Mum are the closest you can get, but it never felt like the right time to tell her because Nicola and I were always splitting up,’ Alexa says. ‘I wanted to feel secure, in a nice relationship. It’s a big thing. It’s not your everyday, “Oh, by the way, Mum...”
‘She would text things like, “I’ll
make a trip to your mum’s and that won’t go down well will it?” And “your mum’s going to know everything”.
‘I stayed with Nicola longer because she threatened to tell Mum.’
Things came to a head in the November of 2014 during what was supposed to be a romantic night away in Blackpool to rekindle their relationship. ‘It all turned sour,’ Alexa says. ‘I told Nicola I didn’t want to be with her and that was it. She said she would tell Mum about us when we got back. She was going to scream it from the rooftops. I went into a panic. I didn’t want Mum to find out like that so I texted her.
‘It said, “I’m really sorry. I’ve been lying to you. Nicola’s not just my friend, I’ve been in a relationship with her.” She rang me straight back and said, “Come home, we need to talk. It’s all right, don’t worry.”
‘There was no form of anger from her. As long as I’m healthy and happy.’
Alexa and her mother agreed to keep the information from her father. But he was to discover the whole story in the worst way imaginable last year when Alexa was arrested at the family home at 5am. Four days before this Nicola had visited Alexa at home to accuse her of posting negative things about her on Instagram.
Although the pair had separated they still met up on occasion to see if they could make their relationship work. Alexa’s evidence in court was the same as her story today.
‘She just started screaming and shouting at my mum that it was her fault we weren’t together. She was clearly still drunk from the night before.
‘She looked nasty, evil. Mum was frightened to death. I told her on ten occasions to go away. She kicked me. The neighbour got between us. She was like a raving lunatic, a woman on a mission to hurt me. She came at me again, hitting and kicking out. I hit her back. I’m not aggressive at all. I’m so laidback, I’m virtually horizontal.
‘I’ve never hit anybody in my life. It was to protect me and my mum. We live in a quiet, reserved area. I’m a professional teacher. The last thing I wanted was an altercation on my mum’s street. All I ever wanted to do was to not be with her, move on and be happy. That night Nicola left me a voice note saying, “You and me need a chat. You broke my jaw.” I didn’t phone her back, I didn’t believe her.’ Four days later, Alexa’s world began to fall apart. ‘I’d been to a Beyoncé gig the night before and we’d got in at 2am. Then my dad woke me and said the police were downstairs and they wanted to speak to me. It was 5am. ‘Mum and I had kept it between us so he knew nothing. Mum had to tell him everything. They were crying. I’ve never been spoken to by the police. I’ve always been on the right side of the law. I worked hard, got ten GCSEs, A- levels, went straight to university on a double scholarship. I’d never ever been in that position before in my life. Dad said, “It’s all right, don’t worry, keep smiling.” They were both crying. They watched their little girl be put in the back of a police van. Dad wasn’t both-ered that I had been in a relationship with a girl. He’s so laid-back.’ Alexa returned to work at the start of the following school year, but at Christmas she was put on ‘gardening leave’ and told not to enter the premises. ‘I said, “Please don’t take the only thing I’m fighting for away.” I was hysterical.
‘They offered me a little sum of money and that was it. They won’t speak to me and will only give me a reference saying when I worked there.’
‘I had to see my doctor twice a week for counselling. I wasn’t sleeping so she was prescribing sleeping tablets.
‘I’m fluttering in and out of depression but refuse to take any antidepressants. My mum had three months off work with stress. She didn’t want to go to work thinking that I might be do something serious.’
She describes the day she hit the headlines during her trial at Manchester Crown Court in June as the worst of her life. ‘I was distraught. When Nicola said she was going to ruin my life, I realised then that she had. She had tarnished my name completely.
‘I barricaded myself in my room. Nobody could get in. I was saying I didn’t want to be there, that I was fed up with life and everyone in it. Mum had to keep putting her make-up mirror through the gap in the door to make sure I was still alive. She begged me to let her in. She’d already removed all the tablets that were in my room. I knew it [the verdict] was going to be not guilty but I’d already been humiliated.’
The evidence against Nicola’s claim included a WhatsApp message in which a friend had said Nicola wouldn’t be at a planned netball game because she had broken a bone during a night out the day before she went to see Alexa.
‘When I heard the not guilty verdict it felt like I’d actually died,’ says Alexa. ‘Everyone screamed from the public gallery, but I couldn’t hear anything around me. It was like a weight had just been lifted off my shoulders. The truth had finally come out after 12 months of waiting. It was a massive relief.’
Now with the trial over, Alexa is starting to rebuild the wreckage of her life.
‘When I split up with Nicola, she said she was going to ruin my life,’ she adds. ‘The day I lost my job was the day it felt like it happened. It was the only thing I wanted to keep hold of. It takes a lifetime to get a job like that but seconds for it to be taken from you.
‘If you’ve been in love with somebody that’s the last thing you want it to come to. I don’t feel hate towards her, I feel nothing. She means nothing to me. I wish the police had done more. If they had just kept her away from me I wouldn’t have ended up in court or lost my job.’
‘Instead of pumping red blood, I felt like my insides had gone black. I didn’t want to fall in love again and be treated so badly. I’ve got a guard up that’s about 100ft tall at the moment. I just can’t trust anyone. I’m devastated I’m not teaching and doing what I do best.
‘I have had the 12 worst months of my life. It’s enough to put you off women – and men – for life.
‘Now I’m desperate to get back into teaching. It’s definitely going to be an uphill struggle, probably for the rest of my life. But I feel like nothing can beat me now I’ve gone through this.’
Last night, Miss Lees said she had felt pressured into bringing the case.
‘My life has been ruined. I never wanted any of this,’ she said. ‘Once the verdict was read, I had no help or protection from the justice system. I felt used and pressured by the police and cast aside as soon as the judge had finished talking.’
It’s enough to put you off women – and men – for life
TRAUMATISED: Alexa Collier says the first day of her trial was the worst of her life – ‘I was fed up with life and everyone in it’