A young mum and beauty therapist who escaped an abusive partner is on a mission to make her industry more aware of violent relationships.

Emily Pearson, 25, from Maidstone, lost her home and job when she left her boyfriend of four years but is now happily engaged and a business owner.

Emily has since launched a free course for other beauty therapists, which teaches them to spot when their client is in an abusive relationship and what to do next. So far, 500 people have signed up.

Aged 17, Emily met her partner in a call centre and at first when they got together everything was fine, but that soon changed.

She said: "It starts off with emotional abuse but when you're young you don't understand what you're experiencing is emotional abuse.

"You get told 'it's because you didn't clean, that's why I'm angry with you'.

"You get put in to the state of mind of a child, you get isolated and eventually it escalated into violence. 'He would say you're never going to leave me'."

Emily tried to flee two or three times but he would threaten her and hound her mum and gran until she came back, feeling guilty about what her family was being put through.

She would ring refuge centres but was always told there was no room and she should ring back.

After an argument at the top of the stairs, when Emily was reaching to call the police, her partner and the father of her first child broke her hand and she had to have surgery. The scar still remains.

Eventually, after confiding in a friend she started attending group sessions led by the Freedom Programme, which aims to help victims understand what has happened to them.

She says it "saved her life".

'You get put in to the state of mind of a child, you get isolated and eventually it escalated into violence...'

"At first I didn't feel I was a beaten woman but as the weeks went on I started to realise my life was exactly what they were describing."

"One week I was sitting thinking 'I can't imagine being here at 50 thinking I have lost my whole life to this.

"I was really upset I was putting my daughter through these tense feelings in the house. I thought when she's older I don't want her to come home with someone like him."

Emily left their Chatham home with her daughter Lily, now six, to live with her mum, leaving behind her car and the machines she relied on to make a living as a self employed beauty therapist.

Her ex at first dogged her with messages and in July 2016 he pleaded guilty to breaching a non-molestation order. He was handed a community order and a two-year restraining order.

That was nearly four years ago and Emily is now happily engaged. The couple have just had a baby boy, Dempsey.

The owner of a fat freezing company, before the pandemic Emily spent many hours in her clients' homes and over the years about 30 women have confided in her about their destructive relationships.

She said: "When you have clients they open up to you like you're a therapist.

"It's usually just me and them and it's a safe space. I have had lots of situations where people say this is what is happening to me and I say 'that's not okay' and signpost them to lots of different help groups.

Emily used her own experience of charities to write the course and she is already getting a positive response from other therapists. The course also busts myths around domestic violence, for instance that women often lie about abuse.

"When some people have never been in that situation there's a huge misunderstanding and they'll say 'why doesn't she just leave?'

"I had one person say to me 'I did not realise I was in an abusive relationship' and I have had others who have never been in that situation."

'I am grateful I left when I did, now my child is having a normal life...'

Kent Police have recorded an increase in reports of domestic abuse since lockdown, with 4,024 incidents between March 16 and April 20. This is an increase of 34 crimes compared to the same period in 2019.

Speaking before the lockdown rules were relaxed, enabling people to exercise as much as they want and with more employees encouraged to go back to work, Emily said: "It must be even more difficult when you're completely stuck with someone, it definitely exacerbates the situation."

She added that pressure on emergency accommodation and refuge centres could be stretched further because of the pandemic. Unable to provide treatments during the pandemic, the mum-of-two has been kept busy with her online beauty courses.

Speaking about her escape, she said: "I was lucky, my child was young at the time. I do recognise she was affected by that but I am just grateful I left when I did, now she's having a normal life."

To sign up to Emily's course, email info@evo-academy.co.uk

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