More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
A man abused by his wife for four years felt like he was living in a horror film – as a recording of her threatening to kill him was released.
Controlling Tracy Hannington, 58, repeatedly attacked lorry driver Tony at their home in Herne Bay with weapons including planks of wood, a hammer and even a tin of beans between 2015 and 2019.
At the height of the violence, she held a knife to her spouse’s throat, before moving it towards his stomach and cutting his hand as he tried to shield himself from the blade.
Hannington was put behind bars in October 2019 for two years – but was released last summer with a restraining order.
And now, terrifying footage of a phone call Tony secretly recorded while they were together has emerged in which she threatened to stab her husband, saying she did not care if she was jailed for murder.
"Me and you are done," she can be heard shouting.
"You can leave me this flat because, come hell or high water, I will get this flat as I will take you off this planet.
"I don't care if I do 25 years for murder - you are worth that after today.
"You're weak and you are a spineless.
"Stay away because if you want to live, you'll stay away. You're a horrible little man.
"I promise I will put a knife in you. No one knows what it's like to live with a pathetic parasite like you."
She added: "You said once I was capable of murder, and I am because you have driven me to this.
"You will go out of here in a six-sided box."
Just seven months after first meeting, the pair exchanged vows at Canterbury Register Office in 2013 and moved into Tony’s flat in Collins Road, Greenhill.
The lorry driver, who had been married three times before, previously told KentOnline the relationship turned sour in 2015 as Hannington started to accuse him of being lazy and “a parasite”.
She then started to exhibit acts of control, like throwing her husband’s meals in the bin in front of him and jealously deleting female friends from his Facebook account.
Tony even woke up in the middle of the night to find her standing over him on occasions.
“I used to wake up in the middle of the night and she’d be standing beside my bed,” Tony remembered.
“I was too scared to open my eyes and let her know I was awake in case she started again. It was scary – it was like a horror film.
“She’s very unpredictable. She would walk into one room and be fine, and then she’d walk into the next room and be a different person.”
But in the last year of their relationship the abuse became even more unpleasant as Hannington used a variety of weapons to intimidate him with.
She hit her long-suffering husband with a vacuum cleaner, after swinging it “like a golf club”, and, on another occasion, told him “I’d love to stab you with this” as she held a carving fork.
He estimates that she threatened him at knifepoint three times at the height of the violence.
“What worried me most was the fact she didn’t have the knife in her hand in the first place – she actually went to get the knife,” Tony added.
“You never think something like that would ever happen to you.
“I don’t love her – but I don’t hate her either.
“I do feel sorry for her because she was obviously in a bad place. I don’t know why she turned out how she did.”
Tony says he never wants to marry again, as the experience with Tracy has left him struggling to trust others.
He also felt suicidal because of the ordeal – but he now believes he is on the road to recovery.
“You feel when the abuse is going on there’s no escape and no getting out of it,” Tony continued.
“I did think of suicide when the abuse was going on. It makes you feel like you’re in a bag and you can’t breathe.
“I’m having counselling now, so it’s not too bad and under control.
“I’m getting there slowly. There’s light at the end of the tunnel.”
Tony is set to appear on the latest episode of Survivors with Denise Welch tonight at 9pm.
It will air on Crime+Investigation, with it being available to view for 30 days on catch up.
Respect's Men's Advice Line can be called on 0808 8010 327 or click here.
