A brave mum has spoken out against her “controlling ex-boyfriend” who would lock her phone and freaked out over a single letter in her text message.
Anita Harvey, 50, had met her partner John Stone on the online dating app Badoo and thought she had found the one. However, things soon started deteriorating as the romance turned to intense fear and control. Stone began to isolate Anita from her friends and family, control who she spoke to and where she went, and eventually attack her physically.
John was jailed for three years in October after being found guilty of coercive control and perverting the course of justice following an earlier trial. And today after finding a new partner, Anita has courageously relived her ordeal in a bid to warn other women not to ignore the “red flags” when starting a new relationship, Chronicle Live reported.
Anita said: “When I look back now I think ‘Jesus, the signs were there from day one.’ I was just caught up in the moment. I thought I had finally found someone. He just had this hold over me and I don’t know why. It annoys me that I allowed it to happen. I’m normally quite a strong person. You don’t even realise they are doing it until you get out of it. The bad starts to outweigh the good and you just get stuck. But when you are finally out it’s unreal.”
Anita, who lives in Teesside, agreed to meet up with Stone after connecting with him on the app. She was initially cautious, having experienced problems in relationships in the past. But when the pair had their first date they hit it off immediately, the mum-of-two said.
“We started talking on the Sunday and went to the beach on the Thursday,” Anita explained. “When we were down at the beach I thought, ‘finally someone who is different’. He was just a total wind-up merchant. We talked about the things we had in common. We liked the same music and films. It was bizarre how much we had in common. But now I think, ‘did we have that in common or was it an act?'”
Anita said alarm bells did ring when Stone told her he loved her just four days after they first met. But she decided not to think the worst and having recently gained weight following back surgery she was flattered by the attention and care she was getting from her new man.
“I just thought ‘wow’ he really loves me,” she said. “I had gained a lot of weight and I had low self esteem.” But very early into the relationship Stone began telling Anita not to lock her phone. And he “went off it” after discovering she had not yet deleted the dating app they met on.
“The first thing that happened was we agreed we would delete the dating app,” she explained. “I deleted the account but had forgotten to delete the app off my phone. That was within the first week.
“He had seen the app on my phone. He used to look at my phone all the time. I wasn’t allowed to lock my phone. He went off it about that. That was our first ever dispute. That was after just 11 days.”
Stone also reacted angrily after Anita put a kiss on a text message to a female friend after claiming his ex had cheated on him with another woman. And as the weeks and months went on he continued to isolate her from others.
“He had a major thing about women putting kisses on messages,” she said. “He went absolutely off it in the bedroom. He curled up in like a foetal position, with his fingers in his ears. It was proper extreme behaviour. I thought he must have really been hurt and I said ‘I’m sorry’.
“He made me believe my kids were evil. He didn’t want me to have any contact with my kids. He made me throw out baby photos. I wasn’t allowed any contact with my family. If I went in the shower all the apps on my phone would be open. He checked everything on my phone and I had to be on a video call everywhere I went.”
Then around 11 months into the relationship Stone turned violent. But by this point Anita felt unable to leave. “Nothing happened physically for the first 11 months, it was all mental abuse. But that’s actually worse,” said Anita. “I did love him. But when the violence started I didn’t say anything because I knew what was going to come. He just got worse and worse. He used to tell me no-one else would want me. He used every single thing against me.
“It was like there wasn’t an option to leave. I thought I had lost my family. Eventually I thought this was my life and I was going to have to put up with it. I would be sat there asking myself ‘what are you doing?’
“It just went from bad to worse. I couldn’t speak to anyone. I didn’t know until afterwards that my friends realised.” Former dance teacher Anita eventually broke up with Stone on Christmas Eve 2023 and reported him to police.
Teesside Crown Court heard how Stone, 47, sent his partner messages telling her to “cut herself” and “take a long walk on a bridge”. The court also heard how he bit her nose and pushed her down some concrete steps, during the three-year relationship.
Then after Anita called police he sent her a series of threatening messages, telling her to drop the action against him. The court heard that he would send messages, calling her a “fat s***” and wouldn’t let her speak to other men.
The court was also told how Stone deleted her Facebook account and “shrank her circle of friends”.
Annelise Haugsted, prosecuting, said the victim’s son asked her not to reconcile with Stone after he saw her “bruised and bloodied nose” following an attack. But that she “gave Stone another chance as she felt she had nowhere else to go.” The court heard that Stone, who is a father to six children he doesn’t see, maintained his messages were attempts to reconcile with his ex-partner. His barrister, Andrew Turton, told the court Stone had a “difficult childhood” and a report by the probation service found Stone’s traumatic past “has affected his ability to form relationships as an adult”.
Stone, of Ordsall Green in Ormesby, Middlesbrough, was found guilty of coercive control between November 2020 and March 2023, and perverting the course of justice by a jury after he stood trial in August. He has previous convictions for assault occasioning actual bodily harm in 2001 and for criminal damage in 2011.
As well as the three year jail sentence, Stone was made the subject of a restraining order prohibiting him from contacting Anita for 15 years. Judge Thomas Moran told him: “Following your arrest, you sent messages telling her to drop the case. You put pressure on her, including emotional blackmail, saying you would ‘top yourself’. You have six children of your own, but have had no contact with them for years. You’re assessed as a high risk of harm to future partners, although probation found that you can be rehabilitated.”
Anita is now starting to rebuild her life and has now started a new relationship with Andy Dodsworth, who she has known since her school days. She added: “I lost myself completely but I’m starting to be myself again. I have got a new partner now who I have known since school.
“It took some adjusting to because I can go out and do what I want and go where I want now. It was hard for me to get used to that. I have got to adjust to being in a normal relationship.” And she has now urged other women to trust their instincts when it comes to relationships.
“Just go with your gut,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what your heart tells you at all. If you think something isn’t right then it probably isn’t. Just take notice of the red flags. Don’t think it will get better. Once they have done it once it doesn’t get better, it gets worse. “I just want everybody to know. People need to be aware of how some people can be and the damage they can cause.”