It was an arranged marriage that went wrong. Now Anita is starting a new life. Lee Marlow met her
Every morning Anita would wake up in the bed where she had been abused the night before, in the house where she was beaten so frequently by her husband that it became a routine part of her life.
Every morning, Anita would pray that this new day would be different to the days that had gone before. It never was.
This is the story of a living hell, and the woman who lived it for five years.
Anita is now in her late 20s and living in Leicester. She is timid and nervous, gently tip-toeing through her autobiography while wishing it was somebody else's.
And yet for all that, this is her story, and she wants to tell it.
She's happy for the Mercury to use her name. She wants to have her picture taken. She has, she says, nothing to hide.
She wants other abused women to read it and to see that there is a way out, that there is light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how bleak things may seem.
We'd like to have done that, too, but unfortunately we can't.
On the advice of our lawyers, we can't use Anita's real name, nor the pictures we took of her. Not to protect Anita, but, ironically, to avoid the risk of legal action from the man who beat her.
Anita was born in India. At the age of 19, her parents sat her down and gave her the good news. We have found a man for you, they said. A good man, from a good family, a family they knew from India.
He was in his late 20s, and lived in Luton. He had a job, a nice house, a future and prospects. He would care for Anita, and everything would be fine.
Anita saw him for the first time on the day they were married. She remembers her initial reaction was disappointment rather than excitement; that the fairytale she had written in her mind since she was a small girl would not come true.
The wedding went ahead in India. Crushed by the expectation of others and her own disappointment, Anita said nothing. No-one knew what she was feeling. Not even her parents.
She said all the right things, smiled benignly for all the photographs and so began a new chapter of her life that she's still recovering from today.
Her husband left India a week after the wedding and returned to Luton.
Anita stayed in India with her family until her visa was sorted out.
"I was excited about coming to England, but worried about missing my family," she says.
"I was hoping that we would live together and we would be close."
It didn't seem much to hope for, really.
It never happened. At first, the situation was strained, but mercifully non-violent. That lasted two, maybe three months. Then the fists started to fly.
He would beat her for the flimsiest, most ridiculous reasons – the floor was not clean enough, dinner was not hot enough, there were shoes by the door.
Something or nothing, but always enough for him to kick off and start hitting her. "I used to get up at 5am and I would work all day," she says. "I would clean and cook and run errands. I did all the things he wanted me to do."
It was never enough. Not for him. And not for his mother, either. They lived in a large shared house in Luton – Anita, her husband and her husband's mother.
Her mother-in-law didn't intervene when the beatings started. She didn't even look away and pretend they weren't happening. Instead, she joined in, too.
So you were beaten by your own mother-in-law?
"Yes," says Anita.
Why?
"I don't know. Because they said I wasn't good enough.
"I used to massage her every day. Every day, I would massage her legs and then cook and clean and it was never right, never good enough."
They stopped giving Anita food. At night, they would push her out of the house like some kind of errant dog and lock the door. She had no friends, no support network, no mobile phone, no idea what she should do next. "I used to sit outside and cry," she says.
"I felt trapped." It was the same, day after day – like some kind of modern-day Cinderella fable, but with no prince, and no sign of a happy ending.
It stopped, eventually, after a long-awaited visit by her parents from India.
"I couldn't say anything to them, I just hoped they saw it for themselves," she says.
Thankfully, they did. They gave her some money and she left.
She is now divorced and living in Leicester – a new city, a new start.
Her husband was never reported to the police. Never arrested, never charged, never convicted of a thing.
In the eyes of the law, he is a decent man without a stain on his character. Anita, relieved to be free of him, knows different.
"I am a new person now, I want to leave that other person behind," she says.
"I have friends here, a job, I am learning to use the internet. I have independence. I am ashamed that I am divorced, but I am safe and I am smiling again. I like my life here."
CHARITY: 'Anita's story is just tip of the iceberg'
Anita's story is shocking – but it's far from unique, says charity worker Zinthiya Ganeshpanchan.
Zinthiya, from Sri Lanka, settled in Leicester in 2008, after moving here from London. She established her charity – the Zinthiya Trust – in 2009, specifically to help women in vulnerable positions.
It assists women in violent relationships, working girls trying to get off the streets, women leaving prison with nowhere to go, and so on.
Its income is modest and so, by necessity, its aims are limited.
But what it lacks in funds, it makes up for in enthusiasm and determination. And volunteers do it, says Zinthiya, because there's a need.
"We do help many women, in many different situations," she says. "But we know from our drop-in centres that Anita's story is, unfortunately, just the tip of the iceberg.
"There are other women, in Leicester, suffering the same fate. Our message to them is simple: come and see us. We can help. You don't have to live your life like that."
www.zinthiyaganeshpanchan-trust.org
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