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Hello everyone. Just to let you know before beginning this episode, it contains discussions

of murder, suicide, physical, sexual and

emotional abuse. If you'd like any further information or need help with any of the topics raised,

you can find links to the relevant websites in the episode description.

Hello, and welcome to How Do You Cope with me, John Robbins.

Each week, I talk to fascinating people about the hardships they have overcome, and together

we explore how they were able to cope. Today's guest is the domestic abuse campaigner and

author David Chalon. In 2010, David's mother, Sally, murdered his father Richard in his kitchen.

She covered the body and left a note saying, I love you, Sally. David was 23 at the time of the murder, and watched from the stands a year later, as Sally was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Over the next decade, he led the fight to have his mother's conviction overturned

on the grounds that she had suffered over 30 years of abuse at the hands of her husband.

In 2019, Sally was released from prison after her murder conviction was quashed and downgraded

to manslaughter. The case was a landmark in cultural awareness of the term coercive control

as the new sentencing remarks took into account

the impact of decades of abuse on Sally's mental state at the time of the killing.

Coercive control, defined by the charity Women's Aid, as an act or a pattern of acts of assault,

threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish or frighten their

victim has been made a criminal offence since 2015. David is an ambassador to the Domestic Abuse

Commissioner for England and Wales and an ambassador for the Prison Advice and Care Trust

and the Employers Initiative on Domestic Abuse. His new book, The Unthinkable, a story of control, violence and

...