Rachel Williams says domestic violence is a ‘national emergency’. After she survived her ex’s final attack, her traumatised teenage son took his own life, and she began campaigning to end the terrible cycle of abuse
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t was a sunny Friday in August when Rachel Williams arrived at the hair salon where she worked in Newport, Wales. As she was shuffling clients around, she remembers “looking at the shop door or window and thinking something was obscuring the sunlight”. She quickly recognised her ex-husband Darren’s 6ft 7in frame, and instinctively ran towards him as he pulled a sawn-off shotgun out of his black duffel bag.
She fought him for the gun and was soon on the floor beside a woman in her 90s called Connie, who was shouting: “Go on, get out of here, get out of here.” (“She was in the war, so made of steel.”) Rachel tried to pull a table across herself for protection but Darren kicked it away. Instead, she rolled into the foetal position, pulling her knees up under her chin. “He stood four feet away from me, told me he loved me, and pulled the trigger. My left leg took the first shot and I can remember it wasn’t a pain, it was a force.”
Rachel could smell the gunpowder and looked down at her jeans where there was a gaping hole. “I remember looking and thinking, ‘Oh my God, he’s shot me.’ And then I felt a blast to the right of me, and that clearly missed my head.” She grabbed the gun with “supernatural strength”, and clung on as he stamped all over her head and punched her back. “My left ear had to be slit seven times to get rid of a huge cauliflower ear. I had a bruise from a black eye that travelled all the way down my neck and landed on my shoulder and collarbone. He battered me and then he was gone.”
