EX-BOXER'S ABUSE VICTIM SPEAKS OUT AFTER GUILTY VERDICT
The victim of an ex-boxer found guilty of coercive control and causing actual bodily harm has spoken out about her traumatic experience.The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, wanted to make more people aware of Garry Neilson’s crimes and encourage others in similarly abusive relationships to seek help.
The 58-year-old former Swindon athlete faced trial at Chester Crown Court from September 22 to October 3, where a jury found that he had inflicted actual bodily harm and engaged in controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate relationship.
The person he attacked said she spent more than five years in a relationship with him, which she described as “horrendous” and left her with severe PTSD as well as permanent damage to her nose and left eye.
The offences for which he has now been convicted occurred in 2018 and 2019, but further alleged attacks are said to have happened, including one in March 2023 that proved to be the final straw and led to this court case.
She said: “If I had been small and petite, I would be dead.
After one attack, I looked like I had been in a car crash.
He was like Jekyll and Hyde one moment he would be love-bombing you and be so lovely, but then things would change without warning, he would become violent, chase me, and ridicule me, and I’d end up bleeding and in tears.
There was a fear factor, he’s a huge man and I was terrified, I had to watch what I said, I was walking on eggshells and sometimes I didn’t have to say anything, I would just get a look from him and worry something would erupt.
If he was doing anything I couldn’t talk back or raise my voice, and he’d get annoyed if I got a workman in for the house without telling him because he always had to know everything about what I was doing and my finances.
This harrowing relationship has had a devastating effect on how his victim feels able to live her life now.
She added: “After the attacks in 2019, I gave him another chance and, looking back, it was stupid, but I was vulnerable.
People may wonder why I went back to him but there’s a lot of shame, you feel awful.
I’ve not been in a relationship since, I have nightmares and depression, I don’t sleep well, I don’t sit downstairs, and the slightest noise makes me worry.
When I get back from the school run, I go upstairs and get into bed, and if I go out in the garden at night with my dog I worry that he’s coming to get me.
It’s been hell waiting for the trial but I’m glad that justice will be served at last, and I hope he will get a hefty sentence so that he can’t do this again because he’s been abusing women for years.” She is not the first of Neilson’s victims to speak up.
Tracey Mason spoke to this newspaper in 2015 after escaping a two-year-long abusive relationship.
In 2005, he was jailed for nine months after causing actual bodily harm to a third victim.
Neilson is currently on conditional bail and is due to be sentenced for his most recent offences at Chester Crown Court on November 20.
