RedHanded - Episode 258 - Alex Skeel: Two Years of Torture

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

Described by the first officer to arrive as “the worst domestic scene” they’d ever witnessed, the brutality of what Alex Skeel endured was shocking. Alex had deep gashes on his arms, burns upon burns, and according to his family, he smelt like he was dead. But his years of isolation and abuse weren’t the work of a kidnapper – they came from the woman he loved. Become a patron: Patreon Order a copy of the book here (US & Canada): Order on Wellesley Books Order on Amazon.com Order a copy of the book here (UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus): Order on Amazon.co.uk Order on Foyles Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Visit our website: Website Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzpX2Ozt7tc https://isolatedpodcast.com/episodes/f/alex-skeel-1?blogcategory=Men+Abused+by+Domestic+Partner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1yW5IsnSjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJYmaV6dctw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1ci_Khybvs Uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-56013182 https://www.mankind.org.uk/statistics/statistics-on-male-victims-of-domestic-abuse/ https://www.mankind.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/50-Key-Facts-about-Male-Victims-of-Domestic-Abuse-and-Partner-Abuse-March-2020-final.pdf https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-56013182 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3876290/ https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/coercive-control/ https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9784-paranoid-personality-disorder See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. Where in podcast land, nothing's happened. So we're just going to press on, I think. What a unique treat for all of you. When Alex Gill arrived at a Bedfordshire hospital in March 2017, the question wasn't what had happened to him. It was how was he still alive.

Alex's parents hadn't seen him for over two years. His arms and legs were covered in deep gashes. His skin was falling off from repeated burns, and he'd also lost so much weight that he looked like a child. He was the scarred, emaciated shell of the man that his family had loved. His aunt even recoiled, thinking that he smelt like death. Alex had endured a lot. He had been held captive for years, but not by a stranger who had snatched him off the street, but by someone he loved and trusted.

Alex Skeel and Jordan Wirth were just 16 years old when they met on the 3rd of June 2012. They both had friends in the school's drama performance and they got chatting while waiting for their mates to take the stage. Jordan was the first girl to pay much attention to Alex at all. She was intelligent, academic and a few months older than him even. Alex, who spent most of his spare time focused on football, hadn't really had much interest in girls until Jordan came along.

But those hormones do be strong, and quickly, Alex's focus was on spending time with his new girlfriend. Football be damned. Their teenage relationship coasted along for the next year. Jordan fitted in well with Alex's friendship group, and she didn't mind a drink or a smoke, and she liked Bastille, the band that Alex and his friends were obsessed with.

What a snapshot in time for a whole group of teenage boys to be obsessed with Bastille. So Jordan did have a few quirks of her own that it took everyone a little while to get used to, let's say. She had a lot of strong opinions about what Alex should or shouldn't wear, how he should cut his hair, and how he should present himself. Plus, Jordan didn't always understand Alex's incredibly strong relationship with his family. She didn't get why they always had to eat dinner as a family,

or why he was so close to his grandad. Alex's mum Jed, short for geraldine pause pause for confusion jed short for geraldine that's the route she's taken that's the route jed's taken i suppose what other it's jerry with an eye usually isn't it she's like no fuck that i'm jed i think that's it's not well it's not Ged because she's Geraldine, so. I mean, who knows? If she's going for Ged, it could be Jed. I don't know. Jed just sounds like a Mormon.

Jedediah. Exactly. Jed, short for Jedediah. Well, Jed thought that Jordan was, quote, a bit tricky, which in middle-aged mum language is, I hate that bitch. Uh-huh. Oh, yeah. It's like that, it's a tweet or a meme or something where they're language is I hate that bitch. Oh yeah it's like that it's a tweet or a meme

or something where they're like I know that you probably want to make up with me but I've already told my mum and there's no going back now. Though it's too late and she's probably always right. So Jed didn't love Jordan but she did chalk it up chalk Jordan's kind of quirky behavior if we can put it like that up to just being a teenager. And if we're being honest, in our research, it feels that some of Jordan's trickiness was given the benefit of the doubt because everyone thought that Alex was doing pretty well to be with her. Jordan was good-looking, from a nice family, and had big aspirations to study fine art at university. Alex was less

academically gifted and looked about as gangly as any teenage boy could. Plus, his mum had always had a bit of anxiety about him since he'd had a more complicated birth compared to his twin brother Luke. And I do think, you know, we've talked about this before, the kind of impact of the halo effect and if people are sort of bigger aspirational attractive that people do give them the benefit of the doubt for more problematic behavior and if we're being honest I do think that she was given a big benefit of the doubt because I think a bit tricky even in middle-aged mum lingo translation was quite an understatement. In reality, Geraldine had an intangible mum knowledge that Jordan was a massive pain in the arse.

The first time Jordan lost the benefit of the doubt for her weird bullshit was on her 18th birthday. Buckle up, friends, because this is wild. Alex's parents paid for Alex, Jordan and the rest of Alex's family to go and watch the Lion King musical in London, which is a pretty big gesture for a girl who'd been dating their son for just over a year. The day in London itself went relatively smoothly, all things considered. However, after the Lion King performance, which if you haven't seen it, great show, Jordan was ready to put on a performance

of her own. When they'd gone back to their hotel, Alex came out of the bathroom to find that his girlfriend Jordan, who had just been taken to the Lion King and to London for the day, had completely disappeared. She left no note and refused to answer her phone for over an hour. Alex and his family were frantically looking for her.

The Skeel family were beside themselves. They'd taken their son's first girlfriend to London and now they had lost her. Then, as quick as she disappeared, she turned up again in the hotel lobby, giggling. Apparently the whole thing had just been a joke. Hilarious. That is just the weirdest thing. We talk about red flags a lot on this show, but this is like a red parachute. So after this, the Skill family held Jordan at arm's length, as you would expect. In fact, Alex's friends and family all told him that it might be time to move on. They all felt that Jordan was a bit off, and quite frankly, they thought that Alex could do better than someone who ran away on family trips for a laugh. But to Alex, it seemed like Jordan

only acted out in front of other people. When it was just them, everything seemed fine. Jordan was just his kind, caring, and intelligent girlfriend that everyone else seemed to have a problem with. So the pair ploughed on with their teenage romance. They planned a trip to Egypt and had the holiday of a lifetime. How are these teenagers going on holiday to Egypt? I also just think it's an odd choice. Yeah, I feel like that was more Jordan than Alex, as everything in this will become clear that it is.

First holiday when you're 18. Don't go to egypt go to magaluf like everyone else no they're going on a river nile cruise i don't know it's weird it's a lot but then i you know i didn't have boyfriends when i was 17 so i don't know i just think i always find it really weird when like teenagers do like grown-up dating stuff like there was obviously it went to super fancy school with loads of rich people and there was a couple who i think the guy in the couple had family in dubai or maan or saudi or something like that and he took his girlfriend who i believe was two years younger than him and they put all these pictures on facebook of them having like a candlelit dinner in the desert and i was like you're 15 that's so weird no that is it's too much it's even like when you go on like you

go out now and there'll be like a couple that are clearly 16 like sat at the table next to you having a romantic dinner and she's got a rose and i'm like what the fuck is yeah no it's like it's like you're just hanging out in the woods like drinking wkd and like smoking badly rolled cigarettes exactly yeah go and get fingered behind the bike shed like the rest of us like i think yeah it's like a seeing a teacher out of school or, like, a dog on its hind legs. Like, it just doesn't feel right. So, yeah, they're in Egypt having the best holiday ever.

Except Jordan decided it was time to pull her disappearing act again. Because remember, it's just Jordan and Alex this time. His family aren't there, no one else is there. So this time when she disappeared she left Alex alone in a hotel in a country that he'd never been to before, completely on his own and Egypt is hectic man they're in Cairo, that's fucking hectic shit

yeah, I mean, what is he meant to think also the feeling of responsibility that I've gone away with my girlfriend and I've lost her so again there was over an hour of frantic searching calling and texting, before Jordan finally bopped up again in the hotel lobby. Again, the whole thing was just a big joke.

But one that only Jordan found funny. Even for a 17-year-old boy, distracted by the joys of underwhelming teenage sex, Jordan was becoming too much for Alex to bear. Regardless of whether it was Jordan who had a problem or his friends and family, their relationship was becoming a burden. Then on Alex's joint 18th birthday with his twin, things reached a tipping point. Jealousy had always been a part of their relationship. Jordan would often throw wild accusations at Alex, normally about him sleeping around or just fancying other girls

or daring to look in another girl's direction. And Alex's sister's best friend, in particular, had always been a sticking point for Jordan. The girl was only 15 and Alex had known her almost his entire life. Jordan despised her. In fact, a few days before Alex's 18th birthday party, Jordan announced that if the girl was going to be there, she would not be coming to her own boyfriend's birthday. Alex told Jordan that he didn't know if the other girl was coming. So when Jordan arrived at the

local town hall classic that had been rented for the birthday bash, it's a town hall or it's a rugby club every single time. Shit hit the fan and it hit it quickly. Within an hour, Jordan was hurling abuse at the younger girl across the dance floor. Because remember, Jordan's like 17, this girl's 15 years old. And she's just screaming at her at this party. Alex tried to break things up, whilst also definitely dying of embarrassment that his girlfriend was causing such a massive scene.

In the end, the night ended with Jordan refusing to leave and Alex crying in the toilets at his own 18th birthday party. It isn't a town hall birthday party unless someone's crying in the toilets. Yeah, it's just a shame it's the birthday boy through no fault of his own. I'm Jake Warren and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life You can listen to Finding Natasha right now

exclusively on Wondery Plus In season two I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met But a couple of years ago I came across a social media post by a person named Loti It read in part

Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall,

that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to say the least. Alex's friends and family were now all telling him that enough was enough. At this point, surely she had to go. And to their relief, Alex had also come to the same conclusion. And a few weeks later, when Jordan snapped Alex's SIM card in a fit of rage,

he called an end to their relationship. Unfortunately for Alex, things were far from over. Because the joys of bad teenage sex were about to catch up with him. Can anybody guess what's about to happen? It's the classic EastEnders plotline. Because just a few days after the pair had split, Jordan came over to Alex's family home to announce a classico. She was pregnante. Pregnante?

At first, Jed, Alex's mum, thought the whole thing was just another stunt. I fucking would. Yeah, fuck this girl. But Jordan was more than happy to take a pregnancy test. And her ego was indeed prego. Despite this revelation, Alex didn't hear from Jordan again for over a year. Despite Alex being adamant that he wanted to be a part of their baby's life and that he wanted to pay his way,

Jordan didn't let him be a part of the pregnancy at all. Until one day, Jed, not Alex, Jed got a message from Jordan asking if she would like to meet her three-month-old grandson, TJ. This is all such a like controlling power move from Jordan. It's like, I'm going to come tell you I'm pregnant, prove it to you, and then I'm going to disappear from everybody's life for an entire year and then just show up with a three-month-old. According to Jed, when she first met TJ, it was love at first sight. She looked at him and just saw Alex staring back at her. From the moment TJ arrived, all of Jordan's previous fuck-ups seemed to be forgotten.

Alex's family all felt that motherhood had changed her and she'd grown up into a mature young woman. They all wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt again and encouraged Alex to do the same. Understandably, forgiveness didn't come quite as easily to Alex. And at first, he actually asked to organise to meet his son without Jordan being there at all. But this separation between Alex and Jordan didn't last long. Alex was desperate to see more of his son and wanted to support him the best that he could. And so, soon enough, Jordan was living full-time at the Skeel family home. For the first few months, it seemed like everyone's prayers had been answered.

Alex's mum had the big extended family that she'd always wanted, and Alex had the caring, happy girlfriend that he'd fallen in love with. By the 1st of January 2015, Alex and Jordan were Facebook official again. But, if you speaky bitches know anything, is that if we're telling you this story, the happiness probably didn't last. Death now. The prophet of doom. The fifth and sixth horsemen. All of them. Death com five. Someone was like, it's death com, not death com.

I was like, how can you tell the difference? I can't tell what I'm saying. No, it isn't. I don't know. Nah, that person's full of shit. A few months after the couple reunited, Alex's mum received a telephone call. A telephone call on the telegrams from the olden times. Alex and Jordan had driven past the girl from the party

and Jordan had thrown insults at the terrified child because she's younger than them, remember? And it seemed like the old Jordan was back at it again. So when they got home, Jed sat Jordan down for what she thought would be a stern talking to. Sadly, this confrontation didn't go down quite as Alex's mum had planned. Jordan immediately packed up all of her and TJ's belongings and told Alex that he had to make a choice. An ultimatum. He could, number one, go with her and their child to her parents' house,

or he could stay at home and never see his son again. According to the charity Mankind, the two most common reasons for a man to stay with an abusive partner are the fear of being separated from their child and the fear that that child will be in danger if they leave. And the reputation of the UK's family court system for always siding with the mother in custody battles only helps to solidify these worries. In the end, therefore, Alex's choice had already been made for him.

After eight months of bonding with his son TJ, the idea of being separated from him was unbearable. So in April 2015, Alex packed his things and left to stay with Jordan's mum and dad. It would be two years before his family would see him again. Immediately after moving into Jordan's family home, the pair's relationship darkened. Jordan forced Alex to get a new phone and phone number. In fact, she was so dedicated to separating Alex from his friends and family that she even chucked out his PlayStation just in case he used it to chat to his mates. And things only got worse from there.

All contact from Alex's family was blocked, as Jordan maintained control of all communication with anyone outside the house. Alex's mum, terrified for her son's well-being, resorted to sending a pound via internet banking with the reference, I love you. All she got back was the pound and the reference, I hate you. All she got back was the pound and the reference, I hate you, stay away from me. Now, we don't know who actually sent those messages. Ah, I think I do.

I think I can make a pretty educated guess. But what is definitely clear is that at this point, Alex has become the victim of domestic abuse. And for some people, it might be hard to believe, even in this day and age, that a straight man can be the victim of an abusive relationship. Some people tend to think of domestic abuse as a matter of physical size. And so heterosexual men who are generally bigger and stronger than their female partners, just aren't really thought of as potential victims. However, in domestic abuse, size doesn't really matter. It would be incredibly naive to think that any victim of abuse would have

just been okay had they just been bigger and stronger than their abuser. Because domestic abuse is about slowly grinding someone down until they're unable to fight back or walk away. Until they're so mentally broken that their physical stature is no longer relevant, nor is their social status, age or sex. The truth is most victims of abuse are not physically locked in a cage and unable to leave. Because as we've seen time and time again on this show, you don't always need a cage, restraints or rope to keep someone your prisoner. Officially, one in every three victims of domestic abuse in the UK is a man, and one in every four victims of revenge porn

is a man, and one in six men will be domestically abused in their lifetime. As with any statistic, there is always a dark figure, so the real numbers might actually be much higher. And the truth is that men are much less likely to tell anyone that they're being abused, so it really could just be a lot worse. In 2020, only 51% of male victims of domestic abuse had told anyone before their case was reported. Many men are also unable to recognise the abuse, as they also believe that men can't be abused. A year after Jordan and Alex had moved in with Jordan's parents, Jordan decided it was time for them to get a place of their own. So in July 2016, they moved into a house in the nearby town of Stewartby.

By this stage, Alex's tolerance for abuse had gone right up, and so had Jordan's tolerance for giving out abuse. Now this is an incredibly common thing in abusive relationships. And it's one of the many reasons that abuse escalates, as both the abuser and their victim become increasingly numbed by the giving and taking of abuse over time. I'm not saying it gets easier for the victim to take it. What I mean is it's like a drug.

It becomes more and more normalized for the abuser to be dishing out that kind of abuse. And for the victim, if you're dealing with this on a daily basis, it might stop having an impact unless that abuse escalates. And the abuser understands that and therefore they will escalate. So the abuser feels more able to abuse and the victim becomes less likely to resist and will even maybe stop seeing the abuse as being abnormal. Because Alex's reality was being warped by the world of abuse in which he was living he actually felt at the time that he and Jordan were happy together. He even agreed with Jordan when she suggested that they should have another baby. So they began trying and within a few weeks, Jordan was pregnant again.

And soon she began accusing Alex of being unfaithful, again obsessed with the idea that he'd cheated on her during the year that they'd been apart. Which, isn't there that Doja Cat line that's like, it wasn't cheating if I wasn't with your asio? Or it's like, you can't cheat on someone if you're not together for a year. That's bonkers.

Well, as we will go on to discover, Jordan is grade A tricky bonkers. Yeah, she's not, she doesn't live in the real world. No. Within weeks, Jordan had created a new Facebook account in Alex's name. And she began sending file messages to all of his friends and family. Jordan lashed out at anyone who made contact with Alex on Facebook, telling his grandparents that he didn't want to talk to them, and messaging his female friends to call them all fat, which, um, that'll do it.

Then within a matter of months, Jordan convinced Alex that it was time for him to quit his job, telling him that he could do better. But of course, the plan was never for Alex to go somewhere else. Soon, Jordan had taken away all of Alex's bank cards. So not only could he not earn anything, he couldn't even access the money that he had already. And we've seen it many times before on the show when we've talked about cases of domestic abuse.

You're seeing the kind of classic signs here. First it's the controlling behaviour, then it's obviously the complete separation and isolation from his friends and family because she can't afford to leave those people that care about Alex in his life because they'll continue to pull him back into the real world and point out the fact that her behavior and the abuse is in fact abuse and that it is completely abnormal. And it's like cultish, right? You need to separate people so

that you can fill their head. You can be the only form of communication and frame of reference that they have then you're seeing the classic next step here which is economic abuse total isolation if you have no money if you have been isolated from your friends and family for so long that you also now feel like you have nowhere to go you're much less likely to leave i was going to make the cult comparison as well i think and it's also important to recognize with stuff like this like none of this happens overnight. It happens slowly, slowly, slowly, step by step, brick by brick. And then before you know it, you're behind a huge brick wall that you can't get through. Now, you might be wondering what Alex did all day while Jordan was out, because by this point, Jordan was studying fine art at the University of Hertfordshire and was gone most of the day.

Did Alex stay home with TJ? No, TJ stayed with Jordan's parents and Alex went to uni with Jordan, where he stayed locked in her car or just sat with her in the study area. And she did this because she said, quote, Alex couldn't be trusted. By winter 2016, Jordan once again stepped up her abuse. After years of mind games and mayhem, Jordan knew she had near total control of Alex. And it was now that her abuse toward him became physical. On a trip to London to go to Hyde Park Winter Wonderland,

oh my God, why? She again began to confront Alex with accusations of cheating. Despite Alex's protests, she said that there was only one way he could make up for it. She said they could either go home and write off the whole day, or Alex could go into the nearest pharmacy and buy a packet of sleeping tablets. So Alex did what he was told. He got the tablets and Jordan ordered him to take one. And then she ordered him to take the rest. So Alex spent his evening at Winter Wonderland in a drug-induced daze, unable to communicate or even remember most of the night. And this is where, I mean, anybody who's wondering about like physical strength, well, there you go. She's not forcing

the tablets down his throat. She's controlled him to the point now where she's able to just tell him to hurt himself like this. And Alex is complying because keeping her happy and keeping her from escalating is more important than anything else. Over the next few months, Alex's day-to-day life became hell. Any time he had alone was spent sitting in Jordan's car, waiting for her to finish uni, and any time they spent together was filled with physical and emotional abuse. Between December 2016 and February 2017, Jordan began to slash at Alex's arms and legs with a kitchen knife. She forced Alex to sleep on the floor and would wake him throughout the night

by beating him on the head with household objects until he bled, and then by attacking his legs with a hammer. I mean, she is off the charts, like, just plain... I don't even know. Like, it escalates... It doesn't escalate quickly

because there is years, months of this build-up to this, but when she lets that damn break of physical abuse, she just goes for it. And there just seems to be so much rage inside of her to wake someone up. You're also waking yourself up, that means, just to do this, to beat his legs with a hammer while he's asleep. And just to show you how reckless and how much disregard Jordan had for any of their safety, even their car journeys to and from Jordan's university were filled with violence. Jordan kept a broken hairbrush in the car, which she used to attack Alex, at one point knocking one of his teeth out. So presumably one of them is driving and the other is sat in the

passenger seat. And even while that's the case, driving driving she's happy to attack him. On top of this Jordan had complete control of anything Alex ate and his diet was reduced to almost nothing. The situation for Alex was desperate and he knew it. At 2.30pm on the 3rd of February 2017 Alex's dad Graham got a call from Alex begging for help. The Skeel family jumped into a car and raced over to Alex and Jordan's home in Stewartby, but when they got there, nobody would answer the door, so they called the police. But when the officers arrived and entered the home, they came back out of the house alone. They told the Skeel family that Alex and Jordan had simply had a row and that everything had now calmed down. Apparently Alex still didn't want to see his family but the police did let

them know that Jordan was pregnant and Alex was walking with a limp. Not long after this the couple went to see Alex's favourite band Bastille in Leeds. Now this might seem like a strange move from Jordan because she's the one who took him to see his favourite band in his favourite city. And you might think that's far from abusive. But this is how coercive control works. Jordan wasn't just in control of the bad parts of Alex's life. She was also the relief. She was Alex's sole point of reference and his sole provider of both happiness and abuse. And I think that anybody who has been anywhere,

even within the proximity of an abusive situation, will know that one of the key ways in which abusers maintain control is by keeping you on eggshells the entire time. It's about flipping and changing between hot and cold constantly so that you never know what's coming next. Yeah, exactly. Otherwise, the abuse doesn't work yeah it's quite literally how it works it's the to quote my favorite textbook on manipulation

48 laws of power the most effective way of manipulating someone is giving them everything and then taking it away instantaneously and that's what she's doing you know one night she's like let's go see best deal in leeds and he he is probably going to think, great, everything's going to be fine now, forever. And then obviously not, because whenever Georgian provided Alex with a bit of good, she'd always make sure to balance the scales. So the next day, after watching Bastille, Alex woke up in their hotel room to the feeling of a kettle of boiling water being poured onto his back. The burns on his back were left untreated and Jordan told Alex to tell everyone who asked

that there had been a problem with the shower at the hotel. So the shower at the hotel started pouring out boiling 100 degree water and Alex stood in there long enough for his back to get burned. Yeah, just stood there. Sure. And from this horrific moment onwards, boiling water would become a big part of Alex's day-to-day life. And this again is we just can't like stress enough, though of course you lovely listeners already know this because you're very intelligent people, is that this is why she didn't need to have brute strength over Alex.

Boiling water out of a kettle. While you're asleep. Yes, a child could do that to you. And when they got home from the concert, Alex's life was also about to take another turn. Because Jordan had purchased a cheap lie detector game. And she asked Alex to sit down so that she could ask him some questions. The heavily pregnant Jordan then spent hours berating Alex relentlessly about speaking to and having sex with other women.

Obviously, we know and you know and even Dr Phil knows that lie detector tests are flawed at the best of times and a cheap game purchased from a local toy shop isn't much more than a practical joke. But Jordan either didn't know or she didn't care and she asked question after question about various, air quotes, relationships isn't much more than a practical joke. But Jordan either didn't know or she didn't care. And she asked question after question about various, air quotes, relationships that Alex had had with other women.

Any time the lie detector went off, a boiling hot kettle of water was poured over Alex's arms. Eventually, when Alex was covered in burns upon burns, Jordan let him run a cold bath but the moment he got in she told him to get back out or she'd burn him again I mean this obviously she's a woman by this point because she's over 18 but like in my mind she's still like a teenager she's still like a fucking juvenile and to have this level of like manipulative know-how and this level of like visceral physical punishment capability in her is like i know we've seen cases like sport but it is shocking because it's like everybody else like before she gets with alex and things like that

nobody's really talking about red flags with her it's not like from a child she's been pulling the legs off cats or something it just seems so sad sadistic, so young. And I know I shouldn't be shocked by anything anymore, but it is shocking. I was going to say, I think I feel the same, like this has upset me more than I've been upset in a while. I think it's safe to say at this point that Jordan had become delusional. Alex hadn't left the house without her for over a year. And yet she was convinced or she kept saying that he must be cheating on her. Now we, as we say all the time on Red Handed, we are not mental health experts.

But with behaviour this extreme, it could be indicative of a condition, perhaps something like paranoid personality disorder or PPD. Now PPD, we looked into it, it's defined in the DSM-5 as quote, a diagnosis assigned to individuals who have a pervasive, persistent and enduring mistrust of others and a profoundly cynical view of others and the world. Like almost everything in the DSM-5, we're now all sitting around here thinking about how that could definitely apply to ourselves or someone we know at some point in our lives. But as we always say with conditions like this, it's more than just a bit of suspicion. It's more than just having a healthy bit of cynicism. No, no, no. This is about

being delusionally suspicious of other people, particularly people that you're in a relationship with. People with PPD also have a habit of holding grudges, like, for example, Jordan did with Alex's family friend. They also have a persistent, unfounded belief that they're being cheated on and can become controlling and abusive in order to avoid being betrayed. And that does all sound a lot like Jordan Wirth. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration

with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today.

They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Laney Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime,

The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. On the 2nd of May 2017, almost a year after Alex and Jordan had moved into their house in Stewartby, Jordan gave birth to the couple's second child, Iris. The birth had been all that was keeping Alex going. He thought that maybe Jordan would go back to the kind, caring mother that she'd been after TJ was born. And this is another reason why abusers will do the occasional positive thing or the occasional nice day.

Because you need to keep your victim feeling like at some point maybe we'll get back to that good day. Because I know it's there because I've seen it. So maybe I just need to do something different so that we'll get back to the point where they're being nice to me. And she did. She did go back to the kind, caring mother that she had once been. But this time around, it only lasted a matter of days. Three days after Jordan had given birth, she was back to chucking four kettles of boiling water over Alex on a regular basis. Alex, who hadn't been eating regularly for a month, could feel his body shutting down.

But Alex's torture wasn't over. Just three weeks after their second child was born, Alex's neighbours called 999 when they heard the sound of screaming coming from Alex and Jordan's house. At around two in the morning, police constable Ed Finn arrived to see what was going on. What PC Finn found inside the house, he would later go on to describe as the worst domestic scene he'd ever witnessed. Alex was at the top of the stairs, with a football sock tied around a huge gash on his left wrist, from which streams of blood were pouring down his horrendously burnt and scarred arms. The bathroom floor upstairs was also covered in blood. Alex and Jordan, however, both insisted that Alex had done the

damage to himself. Jordan explained to PC Finn that Alex had a history of depression and self-harm, statements that Alex wholeheartedly agreed with. PC Finn didn't believe what he was being told. The most pressing thing in that moment was to get Alex to A&E as quickly as possible. So PC Finn dropped Alex and Jordan off at the local hospital where Alex was treated for a litany of injuries. The dead skin on his badly burnt arms had to be scraped off to avoid infection, and the countless cuts across his hands and wrists all had to be painstakingly stitched up.

Alex was told that he needed further surgery on his wounds, but before he could go into theatre, Jordan announced that they were leaving. Despite having only been in A&E for a couple of hours, the nurses looking after Alex had grown incredibly worried about his safety. A consultant was called down to speak to Alex and Jordan about the risks of leaving hospital in his current state. The consultant even took Alex aside and asked him privately if his home was a safe place

for him to be, to which Alex replied yes. Unfortunately, there wasn't much more the hospital could do while Alex was still insisting that his injuries were self-inflicted. I mean, obviously, the obvious comment would be here, like, surely healthcare professionals understand the way in which domestic abuse manifests itself and most likely the victim isn't going to make a disclosure of that immediately even if you take them aside and ask them that aside let's say they are taking what's happening in front of them at face value this man is covered in repeated healed burn wounds again and again to his arms deep gashes that they can see on his body he's telling them them, as is his partner, that they're self-inflicted.

I don't know, what is the protocol around, like, shouldn't this person then, like, be sectioned if they are so ill that they are burning their arms and cutting themselves to this extent that they've had to be hospitalized? Yeah, it's tricky. Yes, the only way they can get him to stay is to section him. But if there's a partner there who's saying no, that becomes much more difficult. And equally, if there's a partner there who's saying no that becomes much more difficult and equally if

he's so for example there was someone I knew not well but someone I knew went missing and he'd been really ill and the police caught up with him and he'd come off his medication like very obviously a danger to himself but they had to ring his parents and be like he's over 18 he appears cognizant he doesn't want to take them we can't make him we can't make him do any of these things so it's incredibly complicated no I absolutely I can I don't understand I don't know and it's very hard thing to research like when would somebody be sectioned like that's a difficult thing to understand if you sit outside of that sphere of healthcare professionals etc but that's a difficult thing to understand if you sit outside of that sphere of healthcare professionals etc but that's my question if anybody listening understands like why at this point if the doctors

can see how badly injured he is because there is a picture that's in front of me that we are looking at of Alex's arms they are burnt burnt burnt like you can tell that they're repeated injuries that have healed and then it's happened again and again and again and then he's been hospitalized because he's allegedly cut his own arm so deeply that their bathroom is filled with blood. How are those doctors not like well you are clearly very very ill you need to we're sectioning you or something. I don't know how that works. We obviously know that this wasn't self-inflicted so I think at this point in the story it feels like a good time to talk about why victims of abuse stay with their abusive partners. Firstly, as we mentioned earlier, the key reason that men stay with abusive partners is for the children. Alex had two children and they were always on his mind. TJ and Iris were what kept

him motivated to stay alive. But sadly, they were also what Jordan used to force him to stay with her and this is the thing Alex obviously knows even if he isn't able to comprehend it on like a surface level he knows that she is incredibly dangerous and so he knows he can't leave these children alone with her because we also know that when partners in abusive relationships leave that the abuser can tend to shift that abuse onto the children in order to get revenge. And another incredibly common way abusers force victims to stay is the threat of death. And this comes down to the idea that victims of abuse are made to feel like things will be worse if they leave. We've seen this even outside of domestic abuse relationships, for

example, like the case of Colleen Stan, where her captor was telling her, you think this is bad. If you leave, another group of like secret shady mafia-esque people will take you and it will be so much worse. I'm protecting you. And because they've warped this person's reality to the point that they don't know the difference between what's real and what's not anymore, the victim can really believe this. And if you've been tortured every day, then the default for things being worse is obviously death. And sadly, death threats from an abuser are not always empty. In fact, 70% of domestic murders happen after one partner has attempted to separate from another. And this is why domestic abuse charities advise people not to pressure victims of abuse into

leaving their partners without a safety net already in place. And I think that can be like such a default position that people would take, like you need to get out of there as quickly as you can. But without a good plan of how you're going to get out of that situation, it can be incredibly dangerous. And it's also why it is a good idea to go straight to the police or a domestic abuse charity if you or someone you know could be the victim of domestic abuse. But for now, let's get back to Alex. Of course, we know that the slashes on the outside of his wrists and hands are more indicative of defensive wounds, which they were. Jordan had attacked Alex with a bread knife

while he stood on the toilet trying to get away from her. The deep gash on his wrist had come when Jordan thrust the knife directly towards Alex's face and he'd blocked it with his arm. The next day PC Ed Finn went back out to Alex and Jordan's home. What he'd seen had stuck with him and he felt like there was more to Alex's injuries than he was being led to believe. But sadly when Finn arrived at their house nobody answered the door and he had no way of contacting Alex. But PC Finn couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong and soon he'd be proven right. Less than a week later, another call came through from Alex and Jordan's neighbours,

again saying that they'd heard Alex screaming. Recognising the address, Ed Finn raced back to Alex and Jordan's Stuartby home. This time Alex did answer the door. And in the cold light of day his grim condition was even more shocking. Finn and a colleague entered the house and again PC Finn tried to talk to Alex about his injuries but Alex was adamant that they were all of his own doing and no matter how hard he tried the officers couldn't get Alex alone for more than a few minutes. Jordan always found a

reason to wander in with one of the kids. This isn't a hot take. This is something that I've seen other people talk about, but maybe we have thoughts. Why is there, and I know that there's a good reason for why this might be the case, but there also seems to be reasons when it gets in the way. Domestic abuse domestic abuse domestic battery domestic violence if you just beat someone up on the street it's obviously just battery violence abuse physical fight grievous bodily harm whatever it might be in those cases if there was somebody nearby who was a suspect and they were like i didn't do it he did it to himself like they would still arrest everybody in that situation and go and investigate what happened.

But when it's behind closed doors in a domestic, as they'll call it, it seems that so much more of the benefit of the doubt is given. And I understand the dynamics are different because here there's coercive control, things like that, that make it more added layers of complication. So it does need to be distinguished in how it's talked about. But it does feel like you wouldn't get this much of the benefit of the doubt if you were constantly near the person who had been physically harmed on the street I don't know am I being am I being confused I don't know I think the difference is that if it's out in the open other people will have seen it happen so they can say well I saw that he didn't do it to himself she did it you know but like if it's as you say behind closed doors you don't have that and it's very difficult to I mean it's very difficult to get inside someone's house because they don't open the door if you are on the street and you're found and you've had the shit beaten out of you

I don't know I don't know what I'm trying to say it's like if you're found on the street and you've had the shit beaten out of you and then you're just like oh no no don't worry about it don't worry about it police would they just be like oh okay we won't worry about it or would they look for the person that had done it good point but if you're behind closed doors and you look like you've had the shit beaten out of you but you're like no don't worry about it in this case the police seem to be like okay yeah and i don't know again maybe somebody who is more of an expert and this can explain the differences to me because it just seems like how are you leaving this man alone again and again with somebody who is clearly either doing it to him

or he is so unwell he's doing it to himself? I'm confused. But PC Finn is the one to make some moves. The danger to Alex was evident, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that if Alex stayed in that house much longer, there was a real risk that he could die. So by pretending Alex needed

to head back to the hospital to get his dressings changed, PC Finn managed to get him out of the house. With Alex now in the back of his car, again PC Finn pleaded with Alex to tell him the truth. But again, Alex told him that he'd done everything to himself. So as a last resort, PC Finn turned off his police body camera and told Alex that he promised that they were truly alone and he promised that Alex was safe. And just like that, everything came tumbling out. May we all be PC Finn. I know, be more PC Finn. I know, I love you PC Finn.

I'm just like, again, I don't know how much training our police officers get in terms of, like, handling domestic abuse situations like this. But intuitively, the fact that PC Finn was like, OK, I need to make him feel like she can't ever find out that he said this, turns off his body cam and then Alex is like, yes, please help me. It's so heartbreaking. Finally, Alex could admit that it was Jordan who had inflicted these horrendous injuries on him. And within a matter of minutes,

Jordan was under arrest for suspicion of grievous bodily harm. Iris and TJ were under the care of Jordan's parents, and Alex was down at the station giving a false statement to police. That evening, the officers at Bedfordshire Police set Alex up in a local hotel and got him a McDonald's, his first hot meal in months. That evening, Jordan gave a worryingly comprehensive statement to police. In her police interview, she admitted calmly that although she'd never stabbed Alex, she definitely had cut and sliced him. She also openly admitted to pouring boiling water over Alex on a number of occasions.

Strangely, this didn't even seem really to be a problem to her at all. One point, she even says that she wanted to get everything sorted out so that she and Alex could go home. So she doesn't understand at all, seemingly, the severity of what she's done or how wrong what she's done is, which is terrifying. She just doesn't live here. No. She doesn't live here in the world with the rest of us. She lives somewhere else.'t know where it is no and i don't want to go to there but um she doesn't live here no she doesn't i think that it is really reminiscent of again the case of like say sophie leone where sabrina coudier in that case is convinced that this nanny this au pair is allowing and enabling her children to be sexually abused.

Anybody who thinks that is obviously going to be horrified. But the natural next step is then to call the police. It's not then to torture the person you think is doing it. So while in this case, Jordan may have genuinely believed if she is an incredibly delusionally paranoid person with jealous delusions, that Alex was cheating on her, even though it made no sense because he never left her side the natural step would be then to break up with that person not to

torture them and pour boiling water over them etc so just being delusional isn't enough to explain her incredibly violent behavior there is something much more serious and much more dark going on within her I can imagine that the police would have been like very confused that she's admitting it, but also like, can we go home now? And Alex did go home, just not with Jordan. He went back to his mum's house and his family got to see him for the first time in two years. Like we said at the start, when they met him,

they could barely recognise him. And Alex's auntie thought that he didn't even smell like he was alive anymore, probably because of all of the rotting flesh and like infections that no doubt would have been riddling Alex's body. In fact, the hospital staff who treated Alex later told PC Finn that in their opinion, Alex was around 10 days away from his body giving up entirely. Five days after Alex got home, his two children followed, and Alex was able to finally accept that everyone was safe.

Over the next few months, he was able to recover from his horrific injuries, and then on the 28th of September, Jordan was charged with 17 counts, including grievous bodily harm and controlling or coercive behaviour. In the end, she only pleaded guilty to three of those charges and showed absolutely no remorse at her trial. She was handed two concurrent seven-year sentences for GBH and wounding with intent, as well as being the first woman in the UK to be convicted of controlling or coercive behaviour, for which she got another six months added to her sentence. Now, what's shocking about this is not Jordan's sentence.

Abusers never get as much time inside as people expect. So for people who have looked at domestic abuse cases a lot, it's pretty standard what she received, even though it feels like far, far too little. Again, I just feel like if you abducted somebody off the street and tortured them like that, would you get longer? I don't know. You'd get more for robbing a bank.

Yeah. The shock here is that Jordan Worth was the first woman in the UK, as Hannah said, to be convicted of coercive control. And the reason that's shocking is that the statistics show that women are slightly actually more likely to commit psychological abuse than men are. Men are more likely to commit physical abuse and yet more men are convicted of abuse even though our justice system recognizes psychological abuse, coercive control, etc. In fact the group at highest risk of abuse are women in same-sex relationships. So the woman is the victim, but the woman is also

the perpetrator. Over 9% of whom, so people in same-sex female relationships, said that they had experienced domestic abuse between 2018 and 2019. That's almost 10%. And this is followed by women in heterosexual relationships, of whom it's about half that, it's 5%. And men in any relationship, where the numbers sit at about 3%. Now a big part of this sort of under-prosecution against female abusers comes back to what we said earlier. People don't believe that men can be victims of abuse, and this includes the male victims themselves. And I think that says a lot about the negative way in which we as a society still view masculinity. Oh, and the other thing I wanted to say actually here was I was looking into this and it was

pretty shocking, but obviously it makes sense. There are, and this even only started happening a couple of years ago. It was only a couple of years ago that London, and I don't know what it's like for the rest of the country or the rest of the world, even started to open up male shelters for men to escape abusive relationships. So again, like we said, the point at which you leave is the point at which you're the most in danger. And if these men have been isolated from their families, they may not feel like they could go there. They may not even have families to go to. And now it really does seem like there's only a handful of places that men can go to if they are victims of abuse.

And that's in Greater London. God knows what it's like elsewhere. And you might think that we've just about hit the one hour mark and this is where the story ends. With Jordan finally put behind bars in April 2018. But that's just not how life works. Jordan never never ever stops being horrendous. In 2019, the tabloids got wind that Jordan's Facebook profile was still active despite her being in prison. Jordan, or someone posting for her, but probably Jordan, let's face it, had shared various articles about domestic abuse and even went far enough to suggest that she was suffering from battered woman syndrome. In other words, she had only attacked Alex because she was the true victim of abuse. Then in January of this year, 2022, she started posting new pictures of

herself for the first time since she'd been sent to prison, suggesting that she had served half of her sentence and has been released on good behaviour. So while Jordan seems to be stuck firmly in the past, Alex has instead been focusing on his future. Alex has gone on to rebuild his life and become a certified football coach through the FA, and he's also become an ambassador for survivors of abuse. Through various documentaries, TV appearances and public speaking events, Alex has also helped to change people's understanding of domestic abuse.

One of the things we noticed about Alex is that he also never tries to make domestic abuse a matter of sex or gender. He's focused on telling his story so that people know that anyone can be an abuser and that anyone can be a victim. Go Alex. Yeah, exactly. What a guy. I mean, it's all just so incredibly heartbreaking, but he's incredibly brave. So happy Thursday, everyone. Hope your week was better than that. Yeah. But an important story to tell, though, I think. And what an incredibly strong person, but just terrifying.

It truly is terrifying. I think that speaking of things when it's like we're terrified of young people doing adult things it's like my friend one of my really good friends danielle works as a youth domestic abuse worker yeah and even that idea feels shocking to people who aren't a parents of teenagers b's teachers police officers or people like my friend because i think we think this is the kind of thing that happens when people are older this isn't something that you're expecting to see in teenage relationships. But the fact that she is specially trained and has an entire pack to the rafters caseload that she works on of just working with teenage victims of domestic abuse is horrific.

And I think that, you know, how much of that is learned behavior on the part of the abuser and how much of it is innate, like manipulation and abusive, problematic personality issues? I don't know. Probably a combination of the two. But that idea that people are starting to do it from 14, 15, 16, 17 scares the fuck out of me. Yeah, just we scared. Indeed. So that's it, guys. That is the case of Alex Skeel, an incredibly brave man who is now raising his two kids and being a fucking cool football coach and doing talks on domestic abuse.

It's hard to be a qualified football coach in the FA. Yeah, man. Super competitive. So yeah, good for him. Yeah. All right. Be nice to each other. Exactly. And if you want to be nice to us, you can come join our Patreon, which is patreon.com slash redhanded, where we churn out loads and loads of extra content. So last month, we did an entire bonus episode on lobotomies for our $10 and up patrons. And this month, we're actually covering in our bonus episode, the case of Christian Newsome

and Shannon Christian, which if anybody knows that will know what a fucking horrendous, horrendous case that is. So if you want to hear us talk about it, then sign up to Patreon and you can do that. We give you permission. Patreon.com slash RedHanded and we'll see you there. And then we'll see you on Tuesday for Shorthand, Wednesday for the Under the Duvet, and Thursday for RedHanded Full Fat. We're always with you.

We're behind you. Look, bye. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Check out her place in the Hamptons. Huh, fancy. She's a big carbon tax supporter, yeah?

Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah. Higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul.

The man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today, I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so

sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus.