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RUTH DODSWORTH was standing in her back garden this week, thinking home improvements. Don't we all do that at the first hint of spring sunshine? By her side, offering expert advice, was a woman whose remit went a bit further than daffodil placement, or fence-painting, though. 'We have quite old windows, so we chatted about that, and whether I should think about getting them replaced,' the TV weather forecaster says. 'Would blinds be better than curtains? Obviously, the security alarm issue was a big one, but it was all the little things that I hadn't thought about that pulled me up. She pointed out the rockery and all the big stones in it. Could they be used as weapons? 'The same with the spades, and trowels. Should they just be left against the wall? This is my reality now, having to think like this.' The woman offering a fresh eye was a police home-security adviser, on hand to help Ruth — a familiar face on ITV in Wales — get her house ready for something infinitely more sinister: the release of her abusive former husband from prison. Last April, Ruth's ex Jonathan Wignall, then 54, was sentenced to three years in prison for a campaign of abuse against her. Jonathan, a former nightclub owner, pleaded guilty at Cardiff Crown Court to coercive behaviour and stalking. The case was particularly shocking because of Ruth's high-profile job and eternally sunny professional demeanour. Yet behind all the bright smiles on camera was a woman who went to work every day convinced that her brute of a husband would one day kill her. The court heard Jonathan was an obsessive partner who would set an alarm to check Ruth's nightly forecasts and call her dozens of times a day demanding to know where she was and who she was with. He would turn up to outside broadcast locations when she was working, or insist that she ate her lunch in the car with him, rather than at a studio canteen. At home, he would demand access to her phone so he could check her messages and delete contacts he didn't like, insist on watching her use the toilet and shower in case she was using her phone in the bathroom against his wishes, and accompany her to medical appointments. This is a man who would even torment his wife while she was sleeping, using her finger to open her mobile phone apps. Even when he was on remand waiting for a court date, the court heard, he placed a tracking device under the steering wheel of her car. Judge Daniel Williams told Jonathan he was an 'unrepentant possessive bully' who posed 'high risk' to his ex-wife. He imposed a jail sentence and an indefinite restrain- ing order, designed to keep Jonathan away from Ruth and their teenage children, who witnessed much of the abuse and who eventually ensured that the police got involved. SO WHY is Ruth — who was left emotionally broken and financially devastated by her experiences — now at home in Cardiff measuring for blinds 'which can let us look out without people looking in'? The answer is devastating. She has been told by the authorities to prepare for Jonathan's release and will be informed of the date. Technically, it could come, she says, 'in as little as a few weeks'. She is clearly terrified. 'If anything, I'm more afraid of him now than I was when I first made that phone call to the police, because I understand more about the patterns of coercive behaviour,' she says. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] |
