Abuse survivor who moved Camilla to tears and made her realise she ‘had to do something’

The Duchess of Cornwall was last night reunited with Rachel Williams, a domestic abuse survivor whose extraordinary courage moved the royal to tears on their first meeting four years ago.

It was in January 2016 when Mrs Williams told Camilla, 72, about how she had spent 18 years being beaten, spat at and strangled by her abusive husband, Darren, before he tried to kill her when she filed for divorce.

Speaking yesterday at a Clarence House charity reception, Camilla, 72, told how hearing Rachel’s story that day, along with those of five other women, made her realise she ‘had to do something’ to tackle the issue of domestic violence.   

‘One after the other these ladies got up to tell their stories and they were so brave – it was one of the most harrowing experiences I’ve ever, ever had,’ the duchess said. ‘And I thought to myself, this is going on, what are we doing about it? You know people, I know people that it has happened to. But I don’t think we ever believed it was that bad.’

Since that day Camilla has personally kept in touch with Mrs Williams, now a committed campaigner against domestic violence and pioneer for anti-domestic abuse charity SafeLives, and has deepened her commitment to tackling the issue.

The pair were once again brought together last night when Mrs Williams joined the duchess and guests at the event to celebrate the 15th anniversary of domestic abuse charity SafeLives and the launch of its Valentine’s campaign.

It shows just how much Mrs Williams has achieved by channeling her own horrific experiences and devastating loss, detailed below, into helping others. 

Rachel Williams still has the battered Sekonda watch that she was wearing the day her abusive husband Darren tried to kill her. 

Its hands are frozen at the time he attacked her – 2.26pm. She keeps it as a symbol of her survival of the day he burst into the hairdressing salon where she worked in Newport, South Wales, in 2011 and shot her. 

Mrs Williams, a mother-of-two, endured 18 years of beatings at the hands of her steroid-abusing 6ft 7in, 22st bully of a partner. As well as being punched, throttled, spat at and abused, every aspect of her life was jealously controlled. 

She spent 18 years believing things would get better; that the most recent beating really was the last. That he really was sorry, this time. 

For all those years, she was punched, throttled, spat at, abused and her every action controlled. Yet she remained silent – terrified of the consequences of speaking out. 

The terrible final attack came soon after Rachel finally decided she’d enough. Darren had tried to strangle her, before slitting his wrists in front of their traumatised, 16-year-old son, Jack.

Six weeks later, having been served with divorce papers, he burst into the hair salon where she worked and shot her in the legs, before battering her black and blue.

Later that day he was found hanging in an area of woodland close to their home in Newport, South Wales.  

In a twist of unfathomable horror, Jack – unable to cope with the devastation wreaked on the mother he adored by the father he still couldn’t help but love – committed suicide six weeks later. He is, without doubt, a victim of domestic violence, too. 

Rachel met Darren when he was 26, and she a 21-year-old mother to her elder son, Josh. He was darkly handsome and both shared the same goofy sense of humour. Eight months later they moved in together. 

Unbeknown to her, though, Darren already had a history of violence: a previous girlfriend had taken out an injunction against him and there had been numerous run-ins with the police.

Months into their own courtship, his vicious temper spilled over for the first time. An innocuous comment from a friend about a boy Rachel used to date set him off.

On the way home from their evening out he pushed Rachel down an embankment into stinging nettles.

Darren was inconsolable afterwards – this was to become a performance Rachel knew well – gushing apologies and pledges that it wouldn’t happen again. But, of course, it did.

Jack even experienced his father’s violence before he was born: Rachel was seven months pregnant when Darren lifted her off the floor by her throat during an argument, while screaming in her face.

Jack was two when he witnessed his father dragging his mother around the kitchen of their house by her hair, leaving clumps scattered on the floor.

It became the little boy’s idea of normal, family life – and for his older brother Josh.

The final straw for Rachel came in July 2011, after a particularly vicious beating.

She said in a 2016 interview with the Daily Mail: ‘I remember opening my back door and looking out over to the woods with tears streaming down my cheeks thinking: “I’m 39, do I really still want to be doing this when I am 49? Having my hair pulled, being spat at in the face and spoken to like something he had stepped in?’

Three days later Rachel moved out and finally filed for divorce. Gwent Police arrested Darren for assault.

Inevitably, he was unable to accept his wife’s decision and repeatedly broke his bail conditions not to come within a three-mile radius of her or contact the children.

In all, Rachel was forced to call the police seven times in just six weeks. 

On August 18, 2011, the day before she was shot, Rachel decided to move back into the marital home after officers agreed to install a panic button. The boys, then aged 16 and 20, had wanted to stay. 

But on that same day Darren returned to court where, following an application by his legal team, magistrates inexplicably lifted his bail conditions, despite his history of aggression and self-harm.

Rachel was not even told about the hearing until after it had taken place. Her mother told police that they had signed her daughter’s ‘death warrant’.

The following morning Rachel went to work as normal but recalls: ‘I was so on edge, constantly looking out at the window and even phoning my sister to go and look for Darren.

‘At about 2.15pm I was chatting to a customer when the window at the door to the salon suddenly went dark. Then I saw Darren walking through it, pulling a shotgun out of his bag.’

He aimed the shotgun at her chest but hit her legs after she instinctively curled up to protect herself. 

She was taken to hospital with a catalogue of injuries: the blast from the shotgun completely destroyed her knee, which had to be replaced during ten hours of surgery.

At 8pm that night Rachel was told that Darren’s body had been found hanging in nearby woodland.

‘All I could do was to thank God it was over, to be honest’ she said in 2016. ‘The feeling of knowing that I wasn’t going to have to face that fear again… I would have been shot ten times over to not spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.’

Rachel’s sons came to see her in hospital. Jack was ‘whiter than white’ and clutched her, saying: ‘Mum, I never thought he’d ever do it.’ But with his mother recovering in hospital for six weeks, Jack returned to live with his father’s family who were – according to reports – unable to come to terms with what Darren had done.

Jack’s texts to his mother became cruel and abusive. He even cut his wrists in a ‘cry for help’.

Rachel called her local social services department to beg for help, but was told that there was little they could do because at 16 he was deemed an adult.

Three days after her release from hospital in September 2011, Jack, who had refused to see his mother since the day of the shooting, went missing. His body was found in the same spot where he had scattered his father’s ashes.

A coroner later described his death as ‘tragic’ and said it should never have happened. 

Rachel channeled her raw, visceral grief into something positive: becoming a campaigner and adviser with the domestic violence charity SafeLives. 

Yesterday Camilla hosted a reception at Clarence House to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Safe Lives and the launch of its Valentine’s campaign which, appropriately, celebrates the collective strength and resilience of thousands of female – and male – survivors of domestic abuse. 

Mrs Williams said yesterday she will always be thankful to Camilla for her support. 

Speaking about their 2016 meeting, she said: ‘It was very significant for me to speak to a member of the Royal Family with that platform to help us. I can remember meeting her for the first time so clearly.

‘Everyone judges somebody within the first ten seconds of meeting them and I instantly warmed to the duchess because you could see that obviously it wasn’t a token gesture for her – she wasn’t there just to tick off a duty that day.

‘You could see very clearly that she wanted to be there, was really interested in what we were saying and was physically moved by it. That meant a lot to her.’ Since that day Camilla has personally kept in touch with Mrs Williams, supporting her inaugural Stand Up to Domestic Abuse conference last year.

She said: ‘Her support has been fantastic.’ Mrs Williams continues to campaign on a host of issues including making all judges undertake mandatory specialist domestic abuse training.

She stressed: ‘I want everybody to make domestic abuse their business. Anyone can be affected by it. There is no dividing line on this.

‘I was only able to leave Darren when the fear of staying with him became greater than the fear of living with him.’

‘The stories are so harrowing, the tears came … so I thought, what are we doing about it?’: Camilla opens her heart to the Mail  

By Rebecca English, Royal Correspondent for the Daily Mail 

The tears came, didn’t they? the Duchess of Cornwall said as she recalled the moment she and I sat down together four years ago to listen to six of the bravest women either of us have ever had the privilege of meeting.

‘I didn’t really know the extent of domestic abuse and I think until I got to that meeting – you probably felt this too – and we all sat round, that I wasn’t sure what I was going to expect.

‘And then one after the other these ladies got up to tell their stories and they were so brave – it was one of the most harrowing experiences I’ve ever, ever had. And I thought to myself, this is going on, what are we doing about it? You know people, I know people that it has happened to. But I don’t think we ever believed it was that bad.’

The event was a meeting of Safe Lives – a domestic abuse charity – in a grey, unprepossessing and airless room at the Oval in south London in January 2016.

Yesterday Camilla was speaking, by contrast, in the genteel grandeur of the Garden Room at her husband’s London residence, Clarence House. But the emotion was just as palpable.

Despite her clearly privileged position – and being a relative newcomer to the royal game – Camilla, it may come as a surprise to some, is fearless in her approach to royal duties. 

In 2016 I had already accompanied her on several visits in connection with the issue of rape and sexual assault – far from traditional royal fare – and been deeply impressed with her quick mind, empathy and determination to make a difference. Never, however, had I seen her break down like that. 

Among the women who spoke to her about their ordeals were: Rachel Williams, who was blasted in the legs by her estranged husband who could not bear the thought of not being able to control her; Celia Peachey, whose shy mother, Maria Stubbings was strangled to death with her dog’s lead by her new partner; and Hetti Barkworth-Nanton, the best friend of Joanna Simpson, killed by her violently manipulative husband, Robert Brown, a British Airways captain.

I ask her: ‘What was going through your mind that first time we sat down in Stockwell and listened to the stories of those brave, brave women?’

She recalls: ‘Those six ladies that day who got up who were the survivors of abuse or had seen it happen to their mother or daughter or sister or friend.

‘I remember distinctly the lady whose friend was killed by the airline pilot, whose children came back in and he battered her to death.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten it. It gives me nightmares still. I remember looking at you and we both had tears in our eyes.

‘The statistics are horrendous and of course it’s never been talked about. It’s been a taboo subject for so many years. Nobody has actually dared to stand up and say “Look this has happened to me”. But that day those ladies did and I will never, ever forget that.’

I ask: ‘Do you find it difficult to control yourself when you hear things like that?’

She responds: ‘I am terrible, terrible. Anything like that there is a huge lump in your throat. I think to myself “Oh dear, I do hope I have got my waterproof mascara on”.’

I remind her: ‘I remember you turning to me and saying “I cannot walk away from this”.’

‘I didn’t know what I could do,’ she says. ‘But I knew I had to do something. You have to investigate it a lot more to see what you can do. My initial response was to get people together from all the different outlets dealing with it. I don’t think they had spoken to each other before, properly anyway.

‘You have the police, you have the wonderful people in the community with their tiny little charities doing everything they can.

‘But unless they make it a joined-up programme, nothing is going to happen. I am lucky enough to have a place to be able to do it. I can get people to Clarence House, I can give them a drink and some lunch, get them to relax and they start talking to one another. When women get together they can achieve an awful lot.’

There was certainly that feeling yesterday as the duchess, 72, hosted a reception to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Safe Lives and the launch of its Valentine’s campaign which, appropriately, celebrates the collective strength and resilience of thousands of female – and male – survivors of domestic abuse.

Its mantra is: if your best friend was experiencing domestic abuse, what would you want for them? And that’s something Camilla has had cause to think about over the years. I’ve always had the impression the duchess knows more about the issue than she has ever let on.

I begin: ‘Do you mind me asking – you can tell me to mind my own business if you want …’ ‘No, Rebecca, not to you, never,’ the duchess roars, with a mock grimace and her familiar laugh.

‘You may have friends who have experienced domestic abuse …’

She looks thoughtful and says: ‘I have known people I suspected it was happening to but they wouldn’t talk about it. People didn’t talk about it then. People feel guilty, they feel ashamed, they think it must be their fault. And I think you have got to convince people that it’s not their fault.’

She then refers to someone she knows well who confided in her about their own problems.

‘Yes, well I recently had somebody I know well, whose daughter was married and living in a foreign country. I said to her one day “You’re not looking quite right, what’s wrong?”

‘She said “I have this terrible problem with my daughter. I can’t believe it as I have never experienced anything like this before. She’s got this strange husband who is exercising coercive control which is undermining her confidence, getting rid of her friends, alienating her family. I just don’t know what to do about it”.

‘The fact I knew a little bit about it meant I was able to put her in touch with people who could help.’ She adds: ‘I work with another charity in Wiltshire called the Bobby Van. It used to be just helping vulnerable old people after they had burglaries, the police didn’t have time to deal with because they thought it was just a minor crime which has now diversified into domestic abuse.

‘When they get a call they go into these homes and make a safe room so that the person who is being abused can lock themselves in with a phone which has a direct line to the police so that they can call for help. It’s just little things like that that make a big difference.’

The duchess says she never ceases to be amazed by the bravery of the survivors: ‘To actually leave your home and somebody you have probably been with a long time is actually very brave. And it is not only women, it is men as well. People haven’t really acknowledged the issues of coercive control, which can be terrifying, it really is one person’s word against another.’ As our interview draws to a close, the passion that the duchess feels in highlighting the issue of domestic abuse couldn’t be clearer.

And it is something, she tells me, she will campaign on for the rest of her life: ‘You know it had hadn’t been for Safe Lives on that day I would never be doing what I am doing now. It changes you. And for that I will forever be grateful.’

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Helpline (run in partnership between Women’s Aid and Refuge) on 0808 2000 247, visit the Survivors’ Forum at womensaid.org.uk, Refuge at refuge.org.uk or SafeLives at safelives.org.uk.