This is an extract from The Guardian 23 October 2011

[He was] polite, considerate, very romantic, attentive, charismatic. I thought I had found my Mr Right. He was very charming and I thought I could take him to meet my parents. I thought he had a high moral code.

I was cruelly tricked and it has made me very angry. I feel violated.

He was always asking me to go to meetings. He introduced me to lots of activists. I did not realise what the ALF was. I have no idea [why he chose to have a relationship with me when I had never been an activist]. It’s a great mystery. [He had a] grotty flat above a barber’s, a single man’s room with a shared kitchen. He claimed to be not interested in possessions.

When my house was raided, they said they were looking for Bob. I now think this was staged.

Belinda (“Jenny”) felt that Bob had given her the right signals that he was interested in having children with her. But when she broached the question, he said no.

I remember crying a lot that day. I was just so shocked.

Soon afterwards he began to tell her that he would have to go on the run abroad to escape the special branch. He argued that she should not waste her life on the run, constantly looking over her shoulder, and that she deserved better – a rewarding career and a family.

He said he was not good enough for me. [He left his flat and stayed in a] safe house. [When I met him there, there was] still a lot of electricity between us.

They spent a week alone together in a friend’s house in Dorset to say goodbye.

I was heartbroken. Even when he left, I could not imagine that it had finished because we loved each other so much. I wanted to go on the run with him. I was prepared to do that for him.

She received a long letter from him in Valencia, saying he was not coming back but raising the possibility that she could join him there.

Even then I could not believe it. [It was the last I heard from him.] I am actually quite damaged by the whole thing. I am still not over it.

Originally published in The Guardian newspaper, full article by Rob Evans and Paul Lewis.

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