Angel Lynn: what her harrowing story tells us about coercive management | Home violence

From the nook of a fitness center in a residential rehabilitation unit within the East Midlands, Nikki Lynn watches her 20-year-old daughter’s physiotherapy session, as she does on daily basis with out fail.

Simply two and a half years in the past, Angel was an outgoing and adventurous teenager with infinite alternatives forward of her. Then in September 2020, her abusive boyfriend, Chay Bowskill, kidnapped her, and bundled her right into a van. Because it sped down a significant A-road, she fell out and on to the street headfirst.

This afternoon, it’s taking Angel a day’s value of vitality to face up, and take a number of tentative steps ahead, with the help of three physiotherapists and a set of parallel bars.

Earlier within the day, mom and daughter had sat collectively, as Nikki helped Angel placed on fragrance, write a number of single-word messages on her iPad, and take a small sip of Vimto. These might sound mundane duties, however simply a short while in the past, the prospect of Angel finishing them had felt not possible. Right this moment, family members and medical doctors hope this progress is an indication of what else is to return.

“Angel has been right here for a yr,” says Nikki, “Earlier than, she may barely transfer. Couldn’t talk. Or something, actually. Now she will be able to write on her pill. Use the distant management to observe TV. Wipe her personal mouth. She will be able to’t speak but, perhaps someday, however she will be able to nonetheless specific her sense of humour.” Nikki had by no means been happier to see certainly one of her six youngsters make impolite hand gestures as she was the opposite week. Common speech and occupational therapies are serving to, alongside different bodily and psychological well being interventions.

“She’s going swimming on Thursday for the primary time,” says Nikki. “I’ve by no means seen her rise up on her personal like we’re in the present day. I’m excited concerning the potential. It additionally means I can focus correctly on telling Angel’s story.”

In Might, a documentary about Angel might be broadcast on Channel 4. “As heartbreaking and exhausting as it’s to speak about what occurred, we have to ensure that no one else has to undergo what all of us have. Individuals of any gender or age can discover themselves in coercive and controlling relationships. Hopefully, this may assist others look out for the indicators.”

Nikki thinks it was late 2019 when Angel and Bowskill, each 18 on the time, first received collectively. “She by no means formally mentioned ‘he’s my boyfriend’ or something,” she explains, “I didn’t take a liking to him – we didn’t click on. However to not let him come spherical meant she wouldn’t be dwelling as usually.” Angel is the fourth of Nikki and husband Paddy’s six youngsters: she is fiercely protecting however had additionally realized to let her youngsters make selections for themselves.

By mid-2020, Nikki had began to note modifications in her daughter. “Small issues, individually,” she says. “I simply by no means added all of them up. Angel wasn’t presenting herself like she used to: earlier than, she’d solely exit together with her hair accomplished, make-up on, dressed up. Now she was carrying dishevelled tracksuits, and never doing something together with her hair or face. Nothing mistaken with that, in fact, but it surely was a change.”

There have been different issues, too. Angel spent much less time together with her buddies, which was unusual: she was massively social. “She’d be snappy if he was ready exterior within the automobile, instantly agitated and in an enormous rush.”

A lot has occurred since, that Nikki struggles to recall the timeline of her daughter’s teenage relationship in granular element. Nonetheless, sure moments stick out. Halfway via Angel and Bowskill’s yr collectively, he was imprisoned for a interval. (Bowskill was later discovered responsible of conspiracy to commit burglaries carried out between June and October 2019.) “He would cellphone our landline on daily basis at 6pm to speak to her,” Nikki says. “ Besides, in fact, she had a cellular he may have simply known as. I believed that was bizarre. Right this moment I’m positive he was making her use the home cellphone so he may management the place she was each night time.”

Briefly, Nikki continues, Angel returned to her previous self whereas he was in custody. “However as quickly as he was out,” she says, “all of it got here again.”

Some time after his launch, Bowskill entered the Lynn household dwelling, shouting and swearing. “He was in Angel’s face screaming: ‘I would like my fucking cash. You’ve spent a few of it’. He was yelling about £80. We paid him the money, and informed him to by no means come again once more. As soon as he’d left, Angel turned to me and informed me I used to be simply making issues worse. Once more, I simply didn’t recognise the indicators.”

On reflection, Nikki can see the sample of coercive and controlling behaviours, designed to make an individual dependent by isolating them from help, exploiting them, depriving them of independence and regulating their on a regular basis behaviour. Since 2015, it’s been a prison offence.

Whereas not an exhaustive record, Ladies’s Help spotlight some widespread indicators: isolating a companion, depriving them of primary wants, and monitoring their time and communications; controlling their funds, humiliating and placing them down; dictating who they see, the place and when. “They have been solely collectively a yr,” Nikki says. “And Angel is so robust and unbiased … I simply want I’d recognized.”

On the afternoon of 17 September 2020, Nikki was purchasing on the Loughborough department of DIY retailer Wickes when Paddy known as unexpectedly. Her cellphone was enjoying up, the sign horrible. “All I caught of what he mentioned was ‘Angel’, ‘A6’ and ‘air ambulance’. I shoved my trolley out the way in which and dashed again to the automobile.” Distressed and panicking, she drove to the junction. There had been a street closure, with site visitors tailed again. “I mounted the kerb and drove down the grass verge till a lamp submit blocked my means.”

Of those moments, Nikki remembers each final element. “Then I began operating. There was a police automobile blocking the roundabout. Paddy was there. My sister, too. They wouldn’t allow us to go and see her. I’ve received a gaggle chat with my mates. A buddy of mine posted in it, distraught: ‘I’ve simply handed a younger woman with blonde hair on the A6. A great deal of blood.’ I realised it was Angel. We made our technique to the hospital. That’s all they informed us. I assumed it was a automobile accident.”

Within the household room at Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, the Lynns waited. Nikki has no recollection of how lengthy they sat for. “Then three medical doctors got here in. She’d had six hours in theatre, however they informed us she wasn’t going to drag via.”

For months, this remained the prognosis. In opposition to all the percentages, her more moderen restoration is exceptional.

Nikki couldn’t stay in court for much of Bowskill’s trial. Hearing what had happened to her daughter throughout their year-long relationship – and on the day of the A6 incident – was too painful. Still, she got a sense of what he had inflicted on her daughter over those 12 months. “Before the accident,” Nikki says, “friends had noticed bruising on her stomach and arms. The police accessed all these vile phone calls and text messages he’d sent her.”

The abusive and violent messages are incorporated in the Channel 4 documentary. “There was the video of him abducting her …”

It’s painful, still, to discuss it now.

Bowskill was found guilty of kidnapping, engaging in coercive and controlling behaviour, and perverting the course of justice. With Angel unable to give evidence, the jury were unable to convict Bowskill for grievous bodily harm with intent. He was initially sentenced to seven and a half years in jail.

“I can’t get my head around how the judge thought that sentence was enough for my daughter’s life being stolen,” says Nikki. “It’s baffling. We don’t take coercive control seriously enough in the justice system.”

Last month, the Ministry of Justice announced tougher sentences for domestic abusers who kill their partners after periods of coercive control. Nikki believes – like many domestic violence organisations – much greater reform is required.

As Farah Nazeer, chief executive of Women’s Aid, said at the time of sentencing: “This sends out a dangerous message about how seriously we take violence against women in this country … The fact that the perpetrator could be out so soon shows that we urgently need domestic abuse training for all judges.” The solicitor general referred Bowskill’s sentence to the court of appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme. In March 2022, the court increased his sentence to 12 years.

“It doesn’t feel long enough to me,” says Nikki, “but with that done, we can look to the future now.”

Back at the family house on a quiet residential Loughborough street, major renovations are under way. Downstairs, extensions have been added to accommodate accessible living space for Angel, and a carer’s bedroom. In the garden, a shed is being converted into a therapy room. Without public support, none of this would be possible. “Angel’s cousin started a crowdfunding page, and the support has honestly been overwhelming.” Already almost £200k has been raised. “But there’s so much more work to be done. We keep doing as much fundraising as possible. It was amazing news when we were told Angel will be able to come home one day. But without public support, it would be impossible to have her here.”

For Nikki, talking about what happened to her daughter is traumatic. She hopes doing so, however, might help others recognise the signs of coercive and controlling relationships. “How didn’t we spot it? She never raised any concerns. We didn’t know what to look for. I’m not sure she did either.

“In schools, young people need to be taught what to be aware of from an early age. Adults need to be educated, too. And we need to know where to turn if we find ourselves or someone we care about in a coercive or controlling relationship. I can’t see another family go through what we have. If telling Angel’s story helps one person get out before it’s too late, the pain of speaking will be worth it. Honestly? That’s all we can hope for now.”