Shock read: How could I keep forgiving him?
Tracy Cotter, 41, has vowed that she will never be so foolish again
I’ve never been a confident woman. Overweight and a single mum to my son, relationships never seemed to last but there was something different about Stephen Davey.
We’d met in 2008 after he started messaging me on an internet forum. Confident and charming, he was genuinely interested in me and within a few weeks he’d moved into my two-bedroom home in Plymouth.
It might sound hasty but I really did believe Stephen and I had something special, and my son, then seven, adored him.
Stephen would come home from work at the local brewery with flowers for me, and he’d take my son out to play football in the park, and they’d go swimming.
But one afternoon, in early 2009, a friend turned up at my door.
‘I always knew he was too good to be true,’ she sighed, handing me a newspaper cutting. As I read it, I started to shake – the article said that in 2003 Stephen was jailed for stealing money from a woman he met in a pub.
Calling Stephen, I demanded an explanation.
‘It was a long time ago,’ he began. He sounded so deeply ashamed of himself but I was furious. ‘I never want to speak to you again,’ I sobbed.
But an hour later, Stephen raced home from work. ‘Don’t throw away what we have,’ he pleaded.
He explained it was all in the past and he seemed genuinely remorseful.
Maybe I was naive, but as he stood there, tears falling, I felt myself softening. He was a different person now. Surely he deserved a second chance?
Eventually, Stephen and I put it behind us and moved on. And I learned to ignore my friends who thought it was a bad idea – they didn’t know Stephen like I did.
In November 2009, we booked a trip to Newcastle. But within hours of us leaving home, my mum phoned.
‘The police are looking for Stephen,’ she said. ‘Can you please come back?’
When I asked Stephen what it was about, he said he had no idea.
After arriving at our hotel, I decided I wanted to go home.
‘Are you coming with me?’ I asked Stephen. But he refused.
‘surely he deserved a second chance?’
Wanted by police
As soon as I got back, police were knocking on my door. ‘What’s going on?’ I panicked. An officer explained that Stephen had skipped bail and was wanted on suspicion of fraud. Stephen never came back, but called me and tried to convince me everyone else was lying. But this time, I didn’t believe him. I vowed to have nothing more to do with him. Months passed, and I heard that Stephen had gone to prison. Before meeting me, Stephen had swindled more than £2,400 from a
woman he was seeing. And, if that wasn’t enough, he was still in a relationship with another woman who had his child. How could I have let this man into my house?
Then, a few months later, a letter arrived. It was from Stephen, telling me how much he loved and missed me.
He was being released soon and he wanted to be with me. I couldn’t deny I felt happy – as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I’d missed him.
Then his mum called. ‘Stephen still loves you, he wants you back,’ she said. ‘He’s been a different man since he’s met you, I really believe he’s changed.’
I desperately wanted to believe Stephen’s mistakes were all in the past, so in February 2011, after serving his time in prison, Stephen moved back in.
‘This time, no more lies,’ I told him.
He got a job in a warehouse and helped me out with the bills and the rent. He’d bring me flowers and cook dinner. But one morning, a year later, as I took our dog Lola out for a walk, I bumped into a neighbour.
‘How are you now, Tracy?’ she said with a sympathetic smile. ‘Stephen mentioned you hadn’t been well.’
It was true, I’d been struggling with fibromyalgia and ME for years, but I was coping well and it wasn’t something I wanted Stephen discussing. ‘I think she misunderstood me,’ he said when I asked him about it that night. But a week later Stephen came home from work in a panic. ‘You can’t open the door to anyone,’ he warned me. He admitted that he owed a group of men £600. They’d asked him to get hold of football tickets, he told me, explaining he’d then gambled the money away. Of course I was annoyed, but my concern for him outweighed that, so I took out a loan for £600, hoping it’d put an end to the trouble. But two weeks later, a few minutes after Stephen had gone out to get some milk, two men turned up demanding to know where he was. Evidently, Stephen hadn’t given them the cash. As I explained I had no idea where he was, one of the men stared at me, his brow furrowed. ‘Are you ill?’ he asked bluntly. ‘Are you dying from cancer?’ ‘What?’ I replied confused. ‘No! I’m not.’ ‘You might want to listen to this then,’ he said, handing me his mobile. It was a voicemail from Stephen, explaining he hadn’t got the money yet because I was dying of cancer.
Career conman
Furious, I called Stephen, but he insisted it was just a hoax message. ‘Stop lying!’ I screamed. I expected him to hurry home with more excuses, but he didn’t. And this time, I’d had enough. I called the police and told them everything.
Stephen, according to the police, was a ‘career conman’ who had over 40 convictions for fraud. Now he’d gone on the run.
It later emerged through the court case that Stephen had told my neighbours I was dying from breast cancer.
He’d lied that he needed to fund a private operation, to convince them to hand over money. They’d believed him. He’d even conned everyone at work into holding a collection for his ‘wife’.
In August 2015, at Plymouth Crown Court, he was convicted in his absence of a series of frauds. I was appalled to learn that in total he’d conned an elderly couple out of £12,000.
Stephen, then 45, eventually gave himself up to police in February 2016 and was jailed for 41 months.
Getting over Stephen hasn’t been easy. I was made to look such a fool but I’ll never let anyone treat me like that again.
‘he told my neighbours I had breast cancer’