I was weeks from marrying a violent serial rapist - my loved ones saved my life

A woman shares her harrowing experience of escaping a physically and psychologically abusive relationship with a serial rapist just weeks before their wedding. Her family's intervention and use of a domestic abuse disclosure scheme were instrumental in the perpetrator's arrest.
Why it matters
It highlights the critical role of support networks and legal disclosure schemes in protecting victims of domestic violence.
Image caption, Christopher Malcolm, right, physically and psychologically abused his former fiancée - who has told her story to the BBC anonymously
This article contains details, including depictions of violence, which some readers may find distressing.
Without the interventions of her family and friends, Amy says she would have married the man who had physically and psychologically abused her for much of their relationship.
Had the wedding gone ahead, she fears he would have eventually killed her.
Christopher Malcolm, a serial rapist who was recently jailed for his crimes, inflicted life-changing injuries on his former fiancée - on one occasion she said he left her face "black and blue" just before she visited her terminally ill father for Father's Day.
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