Holly Jordan, 23, from St. Helen's, Merseyside, was
regularly beaten, verbally abused and spat on by her partner, Michael Quinn,
25. He even shaved her hair off at one point, in what Holly believes was an
attempt to ‘dehumanise’ her and subject her to ritual humiliation.
Quinn would treat her as his slave, forcing her to make him
food, hand in her phone, and even accompany him to the toilet while crawling on
her hands and knees.
He even ordered her to call him ‘Dominus’, after the
slavemaster character in the film Spartacus.
He was finally arrested when Holly managed to escape him
following a violent beating, fleeing his flat when Quinn left the room to get
cigarettes.
Holly, who met jobless Quinn in 2012, said: ‘I’d just come
out of a five-year relationship and wasn’t interested in romance but Michael
made it clear he was interested in me.’
Quinn was persistent and the pair eventually became a
couple. Although Holly was initially happy with the relationship, things soon
turned sour.
‘What I’d mistaken for attentiveness became possessive and
controlling,’ she said.
While she worked 90-hour weeks in a café, Quinn – who had
been signed off sick after injuring his hand – slept all day and played video
games at night.
He’d often beg Holly to stay up with him when she was
exhausted after working a long shift. One night, he shook her awake at 2am and
ordered her to make him eggs and soldiers. When she initially refused, he
dragged her out of bed and forced her.
It was just the first in a series of increasingly aggressive
incidents where Quinn would attempt to assert his authority over Holly.
When she fell asleep on the sofa one night, too tired to
make him a cup of tea, Quinn hit her.
‘After that, Michael would wake me at all hours of the
night, asking for food or drink to be prepared,’ Holly recalled. ‘If I refused,
he beat me.’
Soon, too exhausted to go to work, Holly was forced to quit
her job and give up her flat, moving in with Quinn.
‘I was at Michael’s mercy 24/7,’ she said. ‘The minute that
door shut behind me, I felt trapped.’
One night, watching Quinn’s favourite film, Spartacus, he
announced that Holly was to call him ‘Dominus’ from then on, after the evil
slavemaster.
‘By then, living in Michael’s house, with no job, I’d become
entrenched in Michael’s world,’ Holly explained. ‘I’d lost my identity and all
sense of myself. I fell into his routine and became consumed by his reality.
Michael wasn’t my boyfriend, he was my owner. He was Dominus, and I was his
slave.’
After a while, Quinn stopped her from leaving the house
altogether and even took her phone away so that she couldn’t contact police. One
day, he ordered Holly to get down on her knees and carry him to the toilet.
‘I didn’t think I could sink any lower,’ Holly said. ‘I
couldn’t believe it had come to this. I’d been happy, carefree and bubbly –
now, I was broken. I was too ashamed to tell anyone and besides, Michael had taken
my phone away from me, isolating me from friends and family.'
Later on, Quinn completed his campaign of humiliation by
cutting off her hair with a pair of clippers.
‘It was as though I was a slave and he was my master,’ Holly
said. ‘The monster was dehumanising me.’
Months later, Holly attempted to leave but Quinn bombarded
her with 90 calls in 10 minutes and sent thousands of messages.
When he started making threats to Holly and her family, she
felt she had no choice but to return.
‘When I went back, he told me that I was his and that I’d
never get away from him,’ she recalled. ‘I’d never felt so helpless or so
alone. But I still longed to escape him.’
When she got a new job in a care home, her confidence began
to return and she made up her mind to leave Quinn for good.
She plotted her escape, saving up her wages and finding a
new place to live behind Quinn’s back.
‘I decided I wasn’t going to do a runner and just slip away
– Michael would only drag me back,’ she said. ‘I wanted to stand my ground. I
wanted Michael to know he hadn’t broken me.’
But when she confronted Quinn in December 2013 he flew into
a rage, savagely beating her with a baseball bat and shower pole, shattering
the bones in her left hand.
After her pleas, he eventually went into his room to get a
cigarette. At that point, Holly saw her chance and fled to the nearest hospital
where she received medical care and alerted police.
Quinn was arrested, but continued to harass Holly. In August
this year he appeared at Liverpool Crown Court where he was jailed for five
years for grievous bodily harm, three assaults and perverting the course of
justice.
‘He pleaded guilty so I wasn’t in court to see him sent
down,’ Holly said. ‘I didn’t even want to hear his voice.’
Holly later learned that Judge Andrew Hatton told Quinn:
‘You considered yourself untouchable. You made her call you "Dominus"
because you were in charge. Perhaps you had been. You no longer are.’
Holly added: ‘I’m still having counselling but I’m hopeful
for the future.
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