Just a flicker of nervousness crosses Jane’s face when she is asked about her former partner, but when she speaks her voice is clear and matter-of-fact.

“The physical violence was when there was a big incident. He was terrible when he was drunk, just awful.

“If he was drunk and came back home, got in the house, I was going to get hurt – I knew that,” she says calmly.

The times the 34-year-old was hospitalised – broken arms, black eyes, bruised ribs – are too numerous to list.

She left her partner in 2009. It’s been a long and tiring five years for her since then.

Unlike most other break-ups, Jane’s relationship did not finish then.

For many months afterwards, she was subjected to harassment, stalking and numerous threats on her life – but she knew leaving him would not be easy.

It was not until 2011 that she first came into contact with domestic violence charity SATEDA (Swale Action To End Domestic Violence).

She was referred by social workers who, in not so many words, said if she did not go, her two-year-old son would be taken into care.

It is not difficult to see why they said this to her.

One horrifying incident, which Jane admits her son has still not erased from his memory, involved her ex-partner breaking into the family home one evening.

There, in the darkness, he lay in wait for her and her son to return home.

The terror he inflicted on them that night is the stuff of nightmares.

In a one-stop-shop room, which SATEDA makes use of, Jane met Liza.

It was there, through hours of talking and non-judgmental advice, that she found the strength to break free from his controlling influence. Finally, two years after she officially “ended the relationship”, she was ready to take the last step of cutting off all contact with her ex-partner.

She moved house again, she avoided any place she knew he would be, she completely changed her life.

Fortunately, and unlike so many other victims of domestic violence, Jane’s story has a happy ending.

She was not one of the two women a week who, according to Women’s Aid, die at the hands of a boyfriend or husband.

Without downplaying the courage she showed when leaving him, Jane’s journey through hell to the other side is, in no small part, thanks to SATEDA, which she also now works for.

Set up in 2009, the organisation is now run by Liza Thompson.

Assured, open, and possessing an easy sense of humour, it is no surprise Liza is in the role she is.

Twenty minutes with her and anyone would feel like spilling their life story.

Liza, 36, started out as a domestic adviser at one of the drop-in centres. She had just finished a law degree during which time her tutor encouraged her to pursue her biggest interest – working with abused women.

Since becoming SATEDA’s service director in August last year, she has worked to expand the organisation’s reach over Swale, adding extra drop-in locations throughout the district.

While many would find her job too depressing to do day in and day out, Liza is on a mission to reach as many vulnerable women as she possibly can.

“Once you start working in this field you will not be able to leave it because it’s a passion.

“We could get paid a lot more money working elsewhere but it becomes something that you just can’t let go of,” she says.

Without SATEDA, Jane says she would not be here today because she would, as she bluntly puts it, “be dead”.

That is why she works for them now – she wants to save the lives of women in the position she once occupied, and help them choose to leave a place of mortal danger.

That’s what is was – a choice. Go or stay, reject or accept, live or die.