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WARNING: CONTAINS REFERENCES TO DOMESTIC ABUSE AND VIOLENCE THAT SOME READERS MAY FIND DISTRESSING
The family and friends of Angel Lynn have shared the first warning signs that she was a victim of domestic abuse.
Angel, 21, was left unable to speak or walk after being kidnapped by her abusive former partner Chay Bowskill.
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Aged just 19 at the time, she was bundled into a van by Chay before being ejected onto the road while the vehicle was travelling at over 60mph.
Amazingly, she survived – but not without suffering life-changing injuries.
Angel remains paralysed and unable to communicate, with doctors saying the extent of a fracture on her skull was so severe that she could have easily died.
In a new Channel 4 documentary, her family and friends have come forward to share the warning signs that she was in an abusive relationship.
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It began when Chay was imprisoned for stealing cars, at which point her parents hoped she would ‘see sense and get rid of him’.
“But it didn’t work out like that,” dad Paddy said, with Angel’s mum Nikki explaining: “It seemed that Angel was just constantly running around after him, sending him money.
“She’d come in for six o’clock in the afternoon because he would phone her – he'd phone her on the house phone, so he knew that she was at home.”
Her friend Sheryl added: “I just made fun of it at the time, like, ‘Oh, okay... He’s in prison and you’ve gotta be in at six o’clock?’
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“It was never a situation where she wasn’t there. She’d make sure she was there.
“So when you think, wow. 18? Six o'clock? But you don’t realise until after how serious it was. The controlling had started.”
At another point in the hour-long film, Sheryl recalled the time Angel was giving her a lift to Leicester when they noticed Chay on a back road in another vehicle.
“All the way to Leicester, the phone calls and the messages never stopped, from the minute she picked me up,” she said.
“I said, ‘What is wrong with him?’ He called her a s**g, he called her a tramp – because she’d gone into my daughter’s house, and where there were boys.
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"It was quite distressing. It was alarming.”
And things only got worse from here.
Mum Nikki continued: “He would message her wherever she was. Message, message, message, message, all the time her phone was lit up.”
Another time, police had to be called when Chay started threatening Angel.
“There was arguing in his bedroom,” Nikki explained.
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“Someone had heard a bang. He pushed Angel so hard that her head hit the wall and sent her into a fit.
“Someone could hear him shouting, ‘Get up, you f**king s**g. Do you want a bit more?’”
But Angel’s cousin Fahren also grew worried after spotting even more subtle indicators that something was wrong.
“She knew that I wasn’t happy with the whole relationship,” she said, adding: “I could tell that she’d changed. She’d never post on Instagram, wear nice clothes – which wasn’t like Angel, because she always used to want to look nice.”
According to the documentary, one in three women experience domestic abuse globally.
Angel’s former partner Chay was tried for causing grievous bodily harm with intent for pushing her out of the van, but was acquitted.
However, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison after being convicted of kidnapping, engaging in coercive and controlling behaviour and perverting the course of justice.
The Kidnap of Angel Lynn airs on Channel 4 at 9pm on Tuesday 9 May, and will be available to watch on All4.
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article and wish to speak to someone in confidence, call Refuge’s National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247 or visit their website here. In an emergency always dial 999.
Featured Image Credit: Channel 4/PA MediaTopics: TV And Film, Documentaries, UK News