The other day I watched the BBC Three drama, Murdered by My Boyfriend, and four days later it is still lingering in my mind as one of the most powerful and harrowing things I have watched to date. Closely based on a true story, this one-off drama follows the relationship of ‘Ashley’; a young, popular and ambitious seventeen year-old, and ‘Reece’, her erratic, abusive boyfriend.
During the hour long program, writer Regina Moriarty exposes the truthful reality of what it is really like to be in an abusive relationship. Before watching Murdered by My Boyfriend I admit that I had a very naive perception of abusive relationships – I could never understand why anyone would stay with someone who was mentally controlling, frightening or physically hurting you – but this program provided me with the eye-opening truth of just how manipulative men like Reece can be, and just how little means girls like Ashley have to escape.
Like many abusive relationships, when Ashley and Reece meet everything seems perfect. He is charming, he makes her feel beautiful and inevitably, she falls in love with him. But slowly Moriarty draws attention to the early signs that reveal his true and menacing character. It starts with small gestures like pulling the strap of her top back up or questioning who she is texting, but these signs develop and escalate so gradually that Ashley becomes blinded by his mental control and unable to face what he is really doing to her. It made me understand how tightly reined an abuser can get his victim, and by no fault of her own she finds herself trapped with no way out. He impregnates her and forces her to drop out of college to raise his baby meaning there’s a permanent tie between them, he hacks into her social media accounts and tracks who she is talking to, he dictates how she must dress and talk and socialise, and then of course if she doesn't obey or even attempts to question his actions, he hits her.
Over the four years that they are together we see how Reece mentally and physically tore all aspects of Ashley’s life apart – ‘he made me nothing’, her voice-over narrative says, and although the title warns you of what is inevitably going to happen, nothing could have prepared me for the chilling scene when he eventually kills her. At the end of program a stat flashed up on my screen, it read – ‘It took four years for Ashley to die. In that time, at least 229 women in Britain were murdered as a result of domestic violence.’ – a hard-hitting reminder that although what you are viewing is just actors on a set, this kind of torture is real and it is happening in houses not far from our own. I had no idea how big a problem domestic violence was in this country, but from watching Ashley’s story I can now comprehend why so many innocent women find themselves imprisoned by their monstrous boyfriends or husbands.
Although Murdered by My Boyfriend was an extremely difficult watch I feel it is vital that these dramas are made to raise awareness, not only to help those who are in a similar position to Ashley, but to help other women recognise the early signs of an abusive relationship. No woman should be a hostage to the one person who they should be able to fully trust and love, and no man should turn a woman's life into a living nightmare.
My thoughts go out to all the women who have or are suffering, to all the families who have lost a loved one to this horrific crime, and to all the innocent children like Jasmine who are left to grow up without a mother or a loving father.
If you would like to catch up on Murdered by My Boyfriend you can so HERE.
If you would like to catch up on Murdered by My Boyfriend you can so HERE.
