Zach quickly banned me from seeing my mum, monitoring my phone to make sure we weren’t in contact.
Mum would call the police for a welfare check on me every day but I’d always tell the officers I was fine, too scared of Zach’s reaction.
It was so unusual for me to be so out of contact with Mum, ignoring her messages. She knew something was wrong.
They eventually assigned me a social worker, but Zach wouldn’t let me speak to her.
He would smash the house up and call me horrible names if I didn’t do as he wanted.
At the time he was working at a warehouse and would make me sit in the freezing car park while he worked, so that he could keep an eye on me.
‘You’ve already got kids, you’re dodgy,’ he spitefully accused. ‘I need to make sure I can trust you.’
Alice had to stay with Mum, as it wasn’t safe at
