Sally Challen, who spent nearly 10 years behind bars for killing her coercive and controlling husband in a hammer attack, has spoken out about the decades of abuse she suffered.
In her first interview since her release from jail in June, Ms Challen told the Daily Mail how husband Richard repeatedly raped and tormented her over their 32-year marriage, which ended with his death in 2010.
The mother-of-two was found guilty of murdering him in Surrey and was jailed for life in 2011. She repeatedly hit the 61-year-old over the head with a hammer.
But her conviction was quashed earlier this year. And in June, she walked free from the Old Bailey to cheers after the Crown accepted her plea to manslaughter by diminished responsibility.
In the Mail interview on Saturday, she described the attack as like “an out-of-body experience”, adding: “It wasn't me doing it. I'd never hit him before. I'd never hit anyone before in my life.”
Ms Challen explained she was driven by more than three decades of psychological torture and violent sexual and physical abuse.
She recalled how he forced her to have an abortion aged 17 and used sex to “teach her a lesson”.
Speaking of the first time he raped her, she said: “I couldn't call out, I couldn't say anything, the boys were asleep next door. I spent the night curled up against the wall. I didn't sleep.
“The next morning he got up, took the kids out for breakfast and left me there."
Mrs Challen said despite the violence and his constant infidelities, she “always hoped he would change”.
“I was always trying to please him because I thought if I didn't, he'd leave me,” she added.
Her two sons, David and James, had both welcomed her release, saying it had brought “an end to the suffering we have endured together for the past nine years.”