LAURA Taylor says she will never trust another man as long as she lives, write Zahra Borno and Elinor Shields. It's not surprising. She endured a four-year ordeal of beatings and rape at the hands of the man who said he loved her.

Her husband Jeff was an alcoholic and he and his six brothers terrorised her for almost all the time she was with him. Laura Taylor (which is not her real name) is now 34 and lives in north Oxford.

She met him in a pub when she 20. It wasn't love at first sight but she enjoyed his company and fancied him from the start.

"I met him totally by accident and we got chatting. I liked him straight away and we started going out together pretty soon after that. "I had never seen him around before and didn't know his family but suddenly a lot of my friends started warning me about him. They said I should steer clear of that family - I should have listened to them then, but you don't when you're young."

The couple, who were then living in the Midlands, were together for about a year before Jeff first hit Laura. Jeff, like so many other violent men, could not cope with the fact he was going to be a father and when Laura announced she was seven months pregnant he showed his true colours.

She speaks slowly as she relives the first attack. "I remember we were rowing at the top of the stairs on the landing between the kitchen and the bedroom. He had come in drunk and was shouting at me. Then he grabbed me and pushed me. I went flying down the stairs.

"Imagine that. Seven months pregnant and flying down the stairs. At the time I couldn't believe it was happening. Afterwards, he said it had been an accident."

Four months after the baby was born Jeff was sent to prison for three years for aggravated robbery. He had broken into a house and robbed a man after threatening him and pretending he was a member of the IRA.

"That was typical him. He liked frightening people. That was his way," says Laura. By this time Laura knew Jeff was bad news but there was no way she would have been able to leave him, even if she had wanted to.

"His six brothers thought it was their duty to make sure I would be there waiting for him when he came out of jail. They followed me everywhere and were always trying it on with me because they wanted to test me out."

Whenever Laura went to visit Jeff in jail he promised he would change and give up the drink. But when he was released the violence soon started again.

"He headbutted me, punched me in the face and was constantly accusing me of having affairs. My heart used to sink whenever he came home. "I started to change my personality. I dressed down so nobody would find me attractive and wouldn't say 'boo' to a goose. I didn't tell a soul about the violence but I think people must have guessed.

"When he decided he wanted to get married I didn't have a choice. I knew he was sleeping with another woman and I knew he was with her the night before the wedding but I was too scared to call it off.

"One of his brothers even slept at my house that night to make sure I got to the church."

Laura and Jeff were married for three years and they had a second child. The violence escalated throughout that time and Jeff would hit Laura several times a week. "When he used to hit me I used to hate him. I know some women switch off when they are being beaten but I used to just think about how much I hated him. People wonder why you stay with them but until you're in it you've got no idea how you'll react."

It was only when Jeff started hitting the children that Laura finally decided she wanted a divorce.

"I just woke up one morning and decided I wanted to get out. I told him and he hit the roof. It took a while to sort things out and we were still living in the same house when the decree nisi came through.

"Once I had decided to leave him I wanted to stop sleeping with him but he just started helping himself then." Jeff raped Laura almost every night for months on end. She used to try to hide out of his way by sleeping in the same bedroom as the children, but he would stagger in drunk, grab her from the children's room and then rape her. She speaks with a calm detachment about it all but her eyes are watchful.

"I just used to pretend it wasn't happening to me. I thought he had a right to do it because he was my husband."

Laura moved out when she could take no more, even though it meant leaving the house and everything she owned. She knew Jeff had been responsible for a spate of muggings and she reported him to the police. When they came to arrest him for those crimes she left the house with the children and went into a refuge. Then she moved to Oxford to be near her sister and mother. She has not seen Jeff since.

Jeff may have terrorised Laura for years but it is about a decade now since she left him and she is full of fighting spirit.

She says: "People look at me and I know they sneer because I'm a single parent but I don't care - they can think what they like, they've got no idea what I've been through.

"But I've come out of the other side and he doesn't even know where we are. To be honest, I can't even remember his face."

Help for victims

If you are suffering abuse of any kind, there are several organisations you can turn to in complete confidence:

- Oxfordshire Women's Aid - 01865 791416

- Oxford Sex Abuse And Rape Crises Line - 01865 726295

- Victim Support - 01865 751511

- Citizens Advice Bureau - 01865 247578

Story date: Thursday 24 February

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.