Heather Bellamy spoke with Linda Huskisson about a life of domestic violence, prostitution and drug abuse and how she turned her life around.

Linda: I was really scared. I was told if I ever left him he would cut my face up so badly that nobody would ever look at me. Because he was so intimidating, I believed he was capable of doing that.

Heather: And at one point he did try and kill you, beating you and making you swallow Valium, but you wouldn't tell the police anything, what made you stay silent?

Linda: Again it was fear. Fear had a great big grip on me. He told me if I was to tell the police, although he would go to prison, he would come back out and finish the job. I was very afraid of him and the only way that I could actually get away from him was by running away.

Heather: At this point what had all this abuse done to you? How had you changed over those years of being with him?

Linda: I didn't trust anybody. I wasn't allowed to talk to anybody. I wasn't allowed to have friends. I felt very lonely at the time and life was just awful. If I wasn't at home he would literally give me a real going over, wanting to know where I was and what I was doing.

We actually split up one time and I got someone to babysit my children and a friend of mine encouraged me to go out and have a drink; she was my daughter's godmother. On the way back I had too much to drink and had fallen over and twisted my ankle. Her husband had a bike and I sat on this motorbike with a crash helmet messing around so that they could push me home, because he was too drunk to drive the bike. I could see Terry coming down the road and I got off the bike rather quickly because I knew what he was gonna do. He was just screaming at me and the next thing I knew he picked me up and threw me. As I fell I hit my head on the side of the curb and if I didn't have that crash helmet on I do believe I would have been dead today.

Heather: And did you run away then?

Linda: Yeah.

Heather: What's the reality of living on the streets?

Linda: It's awful. I suppose that's why I've got such a heart for the homeless today.

When I left Terry I believed that I was presentable enough and smart enough to go and find a job. My main idea was to go and look for a job in a hotel where I could work and perhaps get a room as well 'cause I had nowhere to live. I went into so many hotels on the day that I arrived in London. I didn't think Terry would be able to find me there. Unfortunately no work came about and I can remember being in a doorway on the very first day and I was absolutely petrified. I didn't know what to expect. The police were coming along and getting you to move a little bit away. I couldn't sleep that night and stayed awake all night and of course all day the following day and I just didn't know what to do. Part of me wanted to go home and face Terry, but the other part of me didn't want to 'cause I knew when I did get home that I would just end up getting a battering. It would be really scary too because it was his mother that had asked me to leave because she knew that with the temper that Terry had, he could end up doing life in prison. So that was one of the reasons that I did leave 'cause I did think that I was gonna be a victim and he was gonna be done for murder.

Heather: And how long were you on the streets for at that time?

Linda: I was on the streets on and off for about seven/eight months. It was hard. There was a guy that I met who took me under his wing and we lived in the Cardboard City, near Charing Cross. Then there were times when I went to Centre Point, which is very well known for homelessness, but a lot of the time they wouldn't be able to let me go in 'cause I had too much to drink. One of the things was that to keep warm from the freezing cold, I used to down a whole bottle of vodka to help me sleep in the cold for the night. That brings up alcohol issues then and you get to the stage where you need that drink rather than you just want it and then you become addicted.

Heather: At one point you saw your picture in the Sunday Mirror and your two children saying, 'Come Home'.