MAN JAILED FOR FOUR YEARS FOR COERCIVE CONTROL, STALKING AND NON-FATAL STRANGULATION

The survivor of a ten-year campaign of domestic violence and coercive control has spoken publicly after her attacker was sentenced to jail.

The court heard that Asif Alam engaged in prolonged abuse, including controlling behavior and assaults, spanning a decade.

Her ordeal started when she was 15, and Alam was 28, highlighting a lengthy period of harmful conduct that has now resulted in his imprisonment.

n a powerful impact statement, the survivor said: “The realisation of the abuse has destroyed my mental health, I have been diagnosed with Complex PTSD and I have been told that this is because my body doesn’t know how to react to the trauma from the past twelve years.

“I haven’t been able to sleep a full night, I have constant and vivid nightmares, thinking about what he’s done to me, I often have nightmares about his hands squeezing around my neck and I can feel it getting tighter until I wake up sweating.

I have flash backs randomly throughout the day, even when I am doing mundane things.

There’s no trigger and it is clear as day, visions of him hitting me, like a scary film playing in my head.

“I have sought help and I have been given medication, but it doesn’t seem to help, I have suicidal thoughts and I am scared that if I am on any stronger medication then it might make my thoughts worse.

“I try to feel optimistic for the future and I hope that one day the nightmares and flashbacks will stop, and I can finally live my life with the freedom that I lost when I was 15 years old.”

Asif Alam (28/08/1986) of Alston Gardens, Burnage, pleaded guilty to coercive controlling behaviour, non-fatal intentional strangulation, assault by beating and stalking involving fear of violence.

On Friday 9 October, Alam was sentenced to four years prison.

He was also made subject to a 16-year restraining order.