Sally Challen interview on Woman’s hour today

[JoanOfQuarks]

Just listened to the interview with Sally Challen on Woman’s hour. She mentioned how doing the Freedom programme was key to her understanding the coercive control and abuse she had suffered throughout her marriage.

From the BBC Woman’s hour description:

Sally Challen, with her son David: her first radio interview
Woman's Hour

After years of being controlled and humiliated by him in 2011 Sally Challen was jailed for 22 years for the murder of her husband, Richard. The sentence was reduced to 18 years but in June of this year she walked out of the Old Bailey a free woman. The introduction of coercive control as a crime meant her sentence was reduced to manslaughter. In her first radio interview Sally joins Jane Garvey to reflect on her marriage, her sentence and how it feels to be a ‘free woman’ and a new grandma.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008p54

I heard this, it was mind boggling that they knew how coerced she'd been that in prison to put her on the freedom programme.

This is well worth catching up on. I was also struck by the fact that the police and her defence team had no interest in what had led her to kill her husband and it was support services in prison who put her on the right track.

She was the perfect target for her narcissistic husband and what she went through was a perfect fit for the abusive partner script. (As an extreme example.)

She still hasn't completely escaped from the mental prison he made for her. But life can continue to get better for her now.

I heard this too and was just checking if anyone had posted a link. I was also surprised that it was only in prison that the authorities recognised she had been coercively controlled. The one positive is that she sounds so powerful and eloquent now. She also praised Harriet Wistrich and the Centre for Women’s Justice.

Yes, I agree, she seemed very fragile and still processing the abuse. I found it shocking that she said she still loved him. I found the interview a little lacking on details for people who may not have been familiar with her story. His constant physical, sexual and mental abuse towards her wasn’t made that clear. Rather the focus was on his use of prostituted women throughout the relationship which while of course being abusive was only part of the everyday degradation I had understood he subjected her to.