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Episode Four: The Phoenix

A cat woke her up. A cat saved their lives.

In the middle of the night, something woke Vanessa. By the time she understood what was happening, the house was on fire.

Episode Four covers the night everything was lost — and the morning something new began. It also contains the moment Vanessa sat across a kitchen table and heard the truth about the fire from the man who started it.

Four voices this episode:

The story of the fire, the escape, and what Clive said afterwards.

The law on criminal conduct, domestic abuse, and the limits of the evidence standard.

Author''s reflection on Max the cat, Charlotte's gladiator speech, and what rebuilding actually looks like.

The stage — breathing space, and what it means to finally feel safe enough to sleep.

Her five-year-old daughter thought she could be a gladiator. She was going to be all right.

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She needed to keep the electricity on so the panic alarm would work. So she sold roses.

Episode Three is where survival gets practical — and sometimes almost comic. With Clive gone, Vanessa faces homelessness, empty meters, and a legal system that has a word for mothers who protect their children.

That word is implacably hostile.

This episode introduces the family court presumption of contact — the legal principle that would shape everything that followed — and the moment Vanessa first understood that leaving was only the beginning.

Four voices this episode:

The story of Valentine's roses, a sister, and the first taste of freedom.

The law on the presumption of contact and what implacably hostile actually meant.

Author's reflection on the moment she realised the court was not on her side.

The stage — the shock of discovering that the system has its own priorities.

She had survived the man. Now she had to survive the system.

#ImplacablyHostile #DomesticAbuse #FamilyCourt #ContactOrders #CoerciveControl #SurvivorStories #MothersRights #YouAreNotAlone #DomesticViolence #WomensPodcast #TrueCrime #HealingJourney #Podcast #NewPodcast

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Episode Two: The Sorries

Every abusive relationship has a cycle. Vanessa knew it so well she had given it a name.

The Sorries.

The remorse, the promises, the performance of a man who wants you to believe this time is different. This episode goes inside that cycle — the hope it creates, the trap it becomes, and the night everything finally changed.

We also hear from the police officer who told Vanessa she would end up dead, handed her a leaflet, and then shook her abuser's hand on the way out.

Four voices this episode: The story of the night Vanessa nearly didn't survive. The law on injunctions and what the power of arrest actually meant in practice. Author's reflection on why women stay — and why hope can be its own kind of chain. The stage — what it feels like to be trapped between fear and love, and the questions every woman asks herself at this point.

Because leaving is never just one decision. It is a hundred small ones.

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#ImplacablyHostile #DomesticAbuse #WomensAid #SurvivorStories #DawnAustin #CoerciveControl #FamilyCourt #MothersRights #YouAreNotAlone #DomesticViolence #WomensPodcast #TrueCrime #HealingJourney #Podcast

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This is a true story.

A true story, thirty years in the making.

Chapter 1 begins on Christmas Eve, in a churchyard, where a mother hides with her two children and pretends they are playing hide and seek.

This podcast combines storytelling, personal reflection and lived experience of domestic abuse, family court and survival after leaving.

It is not perfect. It is not polished. But it is true.

Christmas Eve. A churchyard. Two small girls who think they are playing a game.

This is where the story begins — not with a dramatic escape or a single decisive moment, but with a mother crouching behind a gravestone in the dark, whispering to her daughters that Father Christmas won't come unless they are very, very quiet.

Episode One introduces Vanessa, her daughters Charlotte and Molly, and the man who made hiding feel like the safest option. It takes you inside the moment abuse becomes impossible to ignore — and the Christmas Day that showed her, with terrible clarity, that no one was coming to help.

Four voices this episode:

The story of Christmas Eve and what came after.

The law on the Children Act 1989 and what the family court system was — and wasn't — designed to do.

Author's reflection on writing the hardest chapter of her life.

The stage — what hope looks like when you are still inside the danger.

Because the hardest thing about abuse is not the violence. It is the silence around it.

#ImplacablyHostile #DomesticAbuse #SurvivorStories #CoerciveControl #DomesticViolence #YouAreNotAlone #FamilyCourt #ChildrensAct #WomensPodcast #MothersRights #TrueCrime #NewPodcast #Podcast #HealingJourney

And if it helps one woman, one family member, one friend, or one professional recognise what is happening sooner, then it is worth sharing the steps to safety and a new way of being.#ImplacablyHostile #HideAndSeek #TrueStoryPodcast #DomesticAbuseAwareness #DomesticViolenceAwareness #CoerciveControl #FamilyCourt #FamilyCourtReform #PostSeparationAbuse #SurvivorStory #WomenSupportingWomen #MothersAndChildren #TraumaRecovery #LeavingAbuse #LivedExperience #PodcastLaunch #MemoirPodcast #TrueStory #AbuseRecovery #BelieveWomen#realcrime

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#ImplacablyHostile #DomesticAbuse #WomensAid #SurvivorStories #DawnAustin #CoerciveControl #FamilyCourt #MothersRights #YouAreNotAlone #DomesticViolence #WomensPodcast #TrueCrime #HealingJourney #Podcast