A young woman who feared she was going to be stabbed to death after her evil ex-boyfriend forced her to kneel in a field after a row has spoken out after he was jailed.
Brave Naomi Baxter, 22, said she was “head over heels in love” with her abuser Connor MacDonald, 23, who trapped her in a violent relationship for 18 months.
Vile McDonald physically assaulted Ms Baxter on multiple occasions – spitting in her face, kicking her and even punching her.
He told her he would “love” to kill her and put her “six feet under with her dad”, who sadly passed away when she was just 12.
Preston Crown Court heard how on June, 10 last year, Ms Baxter and MacDonald had been rowing over unpaid rent via direct messages on Twitter.
MacDonald threatened to stab Ms Baxter’s family members and demanded she meet him in a nearby field at 5pm or he’d “smash her gaff to pieces”.
When she arrived, he told her to turn around and kneel on the ground.
But when she looked back at him he had his hand down the back of his joggers where she thought the knife was.
As she ran from the field, he laughed and told her: “You can go but if you do your whole family will die.”
Thankfully, two passersby found her and the police were alerted.
Ms Baxter, who had been too terrified to confide in family and friends about McDonald’s relentless abuse, said his manipulation went so far she would apologise for “making him” torment her.
He often threatened to murder her family members and, when she tried to leave him, told her he would kill himself.
MacDonald, of Preston, Lancs., was jailed for 12 months at Preston Crown Court on Nov 13 after pleading guilty to assault and making threats to kill.
Ms Baxter has bravely shared her experience as she said her struggle would not be in vain if it helped “a single other person”.
Naomi, from Kirkham, Lancs., said: “It’s so hard for me to look back – I’m still struggling every day to come to terms with what I experienced.
“Despite everything he put me through, I believed he was the best boyfriend in the world. But he was an evil man.
“I was terrified every single day but I also felt like I had to be there with him even if I was so scared of him.
“He told me I’d never be believed – he’d convinced me it was all in my head. That I deserved it.”
Ms Baxter, who works in debt management, met MacDonald in school when they were just 14 but only started dating him 18 months ago.
Of their relationship, she said: “Connor had been abusing me and keeping me trapped in our ‘relationship’ with emotional and physical abuse for months and I hadn’t even taken notice of it.
“I knew I was depressed, I knew he made me feel dreadful, and I knew the things he was subjecting me to weren’t particularly normal but he made it all feel so natural and it was even part of our routine.
“He would threaten to murder my family because I wanted to leave him, this would stretch from my mum to my nieces and nephews.
“He would threaten to kill himself if I ever told him I wanted to leave the relationship.
“On multiple occasions he physically assaulted me. This would range from spitting in my face, kicking me, pushing me, pulling me by my hair and as far as punching me.
“Every time this would happen he said I deserved it and that I knew where to go if I didn’t like it, yet I wasn’t allowed to leave. I would have to formally apologise to him for ‘making’ him do this to me.”
Controlling MacDonald, from Blackpool, Lancs., was caught on camera trashing her possessions, and text messages show how he intimidated her into giving him cash to buy drugs.
The couple lived together at his home between January and April 2019, before they moved into her flat between April and June.
She said: “Connor would often destroy my belongings or trash my bedroom. On multiple occasions he would treat me to clothes or shoes and then later rip them up or burn them in front of me.
“All I wanted was to love and be loved by Connor but all he did was make me a victim to the most awful emotional and physical abuse. He may not have broken any of my bones but he has certainly broken other parts of me.
“Becoming free from his chains was liberating, but trying to heal myself has been a long and lonely path.
“I have been left absolutely traumatised by his actions and am living in constant torment because of the abuse he had subjected me to for so long.
“I am on the road to recovery and letting all of the taught behaviour fall off me. It is a lot harder than I can put into words, but it’s a lot easier than living through it.”
After he was locked up, she said she felt she needed to find the courage to speak out as many other people will be trapped like she was – especially during lockdown.
She said: “I want to speak out now because if anyone else is feeling trapped like I did, if it helps one person, then it means my struggle wasn’t for nothing.
“It was too late for me but maybe other people can still escape this.”
