RedHanded - Episode 343 - Rob Parkes: The Price of Life

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

Rob Parkes is not a paedophilic, drug-dealing, gang-leading tyrant. But that’s exactly what his pathologically controlling, abusive ex-wife tried to lead everyone to believe. It’s also why, she said, he had to die.In a very special episode of RedHanded, we hear directly from a man who found out there was a price on his head – and that over the years, six separate people had been approached to kill him. In interviews conducted in our studio, Rob remembers the years of coercive control; a heart-stopping arson attack at his family home in the dead of night; and the moment he learnt that his life had a price tag.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramXVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. 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. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti.

I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed, where we're doing something different today. Let's talk about it. Because in the autumn of 2019, 39-year-old Rob Parks got a call from local police, saying that they were seriously concerned for his safety. When they arrived at his house, Rob was played a recording of two voices bargaining over the price of his death. The voices were listing all manner of grisly ways in which he could be taken out.

How easy is it to get in contact with somebody that can make someone disappear? I don't know, it's not that hard. Is it costly? Can be costly, you know, Depends what you want done. Just tied up, taped up and kicked the fuck out of and left in Fetwood Forest. You can get that arranged. Other things are very, very, very expensive. Reliable?

Mm-hmm. Why, who do you want to disappear? That's my ex-husband. Rob was stunned when he heard this, but not entirely surprised. Especially when he realised that he recognised one of the voices on the recording, the woman who was enquiring about his murder. It was, of course, his ex, Victoria Breeden. Still, the situation only got worse when Rob learned that this meeting was not a one-off.

Victoria had approached six different men about the hit. She claimed that Rob was a violent, abusive, tyrannical, sociopathic, drug-dealing, gang-leading paedophile who needed to be killed. Today we are delving into one of the strangest cases we've ever covered. And thankfully, by some miracle, despite having spent years with a target on his back, we have the man himself, Rob Parks, to share his side of this bizarre and terrifying story.

So this is, as Saru said at the top of the show, going to be a slightly different episode. We'll take you through the timeline as usual, but every now and then then we're going to cut to Rob using clips from an interview that we did with him right here at Red Handed HQ. And we're really excited to do an episode like this. It's the first one we've ever done with real first-hand insight into how things unfolded, like real journalists. And as you listen, you'll hear exactly what happened to Rob, from an arson attack in the dead of night, to the everyday hell of experiencing coercive control for years.

This case first came to light in an episode of Channel 4's classic 24 Hours in Police Custody. And since, it has become the series' highest rated episode ever. And if you are from the UK and have watched Channel 4's 24 Hours in Police Custody, you know what a big deal that is. Well, there's so many of them. That show is massive. Yeah. And there's so many episodes.

And now, Rob has also written a fascinating book telling his side of the story. It's called Married to the Black Widow. And we highly recommend that you all go and read it, because it is quite honestly unbelievable. With that being said, let's get going. We're going to start our story today at Teesside University, all the way back in 1999. I was involved in the Amateur Dramatics Society.

I love the theatre, always have done. I had the opportunity to lead the club. As I started to do that, in the autumn of my second year, Victoria came along. It was her first year, so she was just joining the university and it was my second year. It was very low-key. It was just a case of, you know, I think she was probably dragged along just to have a laugh. And we connected very, very quickly.

Very quickly. It was a whirlwind first romance. She was only my second ever girlfriend and was someone who was actively pushing for my attention. You know, she wanted to be with me and that was something that I hadn't experienced. If you speak to any young lad who is looking at that kind of period in their lives, it's exciting, really exciting. And soon the pair became inseparable. Rob introduced Victoria to his friends, and for a while things carried on in a fun, studenty haze

of late nights and half-attended lectures. But soon enough, things changed. Victoria became intensely demanding. She started to take issue with Rob's friends and how much time he spent with them. The couple started to go out less and less. Sometimes Victoria would talk Rob out of any plans right from the start, but other times she'd be struck down by a random illness

just before they had to leave. Rob, being just 19, had no context for what a healthy relationship was supposed to be, and tragically he was barrelling headfirst into a dynamic of coercive control. Theatre girls, man, stay away from us. These types of relationships, mine wasn't unique in as much as it's very intense. That's not a unique thing.

Where mine started to cross the line was just how much of an emphasis Victoria was placing on the need for me to physically be there. Everything is more clear in hindsight, of course, but to be made to feel as if, if you want to be with me, this is how I need you to be. This is how you should be, not just with me, but with everybody, because you don't know how you are yourself, do you? I wanted to change. I was open to change.

And therefore, this was a structure, a personality structure that was being provided to me. Soon Victoria began to report debilitating abdominal pains and headaches, and it wasn't long before she was sick or in agony more days than she was well. At any time she could suddenly fall into long periods of intense pain. Now, we'll come back to these mysterious illnesses later in the episode. But safe to say that Victoria needed constant emotional support from Rob. And remember, they're still teenagers. They're still, like, early university at this point.

Like, it is a heavy burden to put on another person, even if it was real. And Rob, as you just heard, felt a duty to be there for Victoria. Even while out at work, Rob would be expected to check up on Victoria multiple times throughout the day. And sometimes these calls could last hours. It was far from normal. And Rob, despite what he's saying about not having a frame of reference for what a healthy relationship should look like, he did know that it wasn't totally normal. I've spoken now to quite a number of survivors and quite a few people who have managed to break free from these. And usually, not always, but a lot of the time, they knew. They know. We we as a collective know it's just that you feel powerless to do anything about it it's like a tug of war the world is on

one side and your abusive partner is on the other and against all the odds against any kind of sense of rational thought the partner wins they are stronger than every other force in your life. And that realization is demoralizing. It actually pushes you further down because you think to yourself, well, I can't go against that. It's right for me to feel guilty because I'm not there when she needs me to be. I have to go to work or I have to go to college or I have to go to university. I'm not there. And that guilt complex, that self-perpetuating guilt complex was being generated and reinforced every single day. I think it's so interesting to listen to how Rob describes the sort of starting point of a coercive relationship like that tug of

war and it's literally that person against the rest of the world and even going against your rational thinking that this isn't right how much power they're able to wield over you and I also think clearly what you're hearing here is emotional abuse the idea that if you are to leave me, even to go to work, to go to university, to spend time with your friends, you are in some material, real way harming me. That's at the core of this kind of abuse. So little by little, Rob and Victoria started spending all of their time alone, or at Victoria's parents' house down south. Eventually, Rob got onto a postgraduate course in Cornwall, so they moved to a tiny Cornish fisherman's cottage, just in time for a freezing winter. But with no friends or family to quote-unquote complicate their lives, things temporarily

improved for the couple. Victoria's pain grew less intense and less frequent. She even got a job at a local health trust. They were happy, and Rob felt really hopeful for the future. By this point, it had been a year since they had last visited a doctor for Victoria's undiagnosable chronic pain. But three months into her new job, the sickness started up again. Symptoms crept back in, And Victoria took more and more days off. And before long, she wasn't even pretending that she was ever going back to work. And after two months of her completely dodging all work calls,

Victoria's P45 arrived in the post. The same week that Rob graduated. The conversation in my head was going, yeah, I know that this is not how it's supposed to be, but everybody has bad times. You self-rationalise. You've got to work harder to get through the rough times. And when you stop to think,

well, just how long are these hard times supposed to be? And then you latch onto the pockets of the nice bits, of the nice memories. I think the really interesting thing here is how they completely displace their lives. They move to a completely new part of the country. They're in Cornwall. They know nobody. And for the first few months, she's together because she's got him all to herself.

And then as soon as he starts doing his postgraduate course, obviously going to university whenever he needs to, probably meeting up with other people, starting to form a new life down there, she's immediately, I'm sick again. You need to stay here. You need to be with me. And just the lack of like, even ability to hold down a job. I mean, we're going to discover so much about Victoria and she's a character. And I think it's important to point out, I've heard so many of my friends talk exactly like that. Interesting. Like, I mean, yeah, no, it's not ideal, but I've done this, this and this and I should be doing this. And therefore the way they're acting is kind of my fault.

I've heard that so many times. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, you absolutely hear it that Rob was riddled with guilt, but guilt that was manifested because of her manipulative ways. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. 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.

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Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. So yeah, Rob and Victoria's relationship so far had been defined by endless medical visits. One doctor, consultant or specialist after another. But no one could find or diagnose any problem. And yet Victoria was still in constant pain. Now, we're going to cut to Rob now to clear up a question that some of you may have creeping into your minds. If you go and see a string of medical specialists, and those specialists all say to you that there's nothing wrong, why isn't that the end of it? Yeah, great question. I learned many, many things during that period of my life. And one thing that I learned is that doctors, specialists, they're just human beings. They know a lot more about a very specific thing than you do, than I do. And so generally speaking, when they make these recommendations, you should listen to them. That is 100% the default position. But my additional layer to that is, of course, that if you don't like what one says,

then you can go to another, and you can go to another, and you can go to another. And they're just human beings, and they're trying to help you. And they're desperately trying to find something that sort of identifies and makes sense of what's happening. But they also are not gods. They don't have all the answers. So to put that into perspective, the reason why it's not the end of the story

is because in my lived experience, there was an active choice. I don't believe you. If you're looking in the wrong place, then you're not going to find what it is that you're looking for. Yeah. And again, it's the emotional abuse, right? It's how do you as a person look at the person

that you're in a relationship with and say I don't believe you I don't believe that you are in pain I think you just need to get over it you can't because then you are flooded with feelings of guilt and being a horrible human being so she's got him trapped already. Now we have got an entire episode all about Munchausen syndrome planned for later in the year so please come back then for a proper deep dive into this fascinating neurological head fuck and yes before anybody comments we know that it has been renamed we know that it's not really called Munchausen's anymore, it's actually called factitious disorder, but I hate that name and I'm not going to use it. Still, whatever you want to call it, here's a basic idea, just in case anyone doesn't know. Munchausen syndrome is when someone tries to get attention and sympathy by falsifying, inducing and or exaggerating an illness. I think

we can safely say that is what is going on with Victoria here. These people lie about symptoms, sabotage medical tests and even physically harm themselves to actually show worrying symptoms. The majority of Munchausen's patients are female at a ratio of about four to one and the reasons behind Munchausen's is not super clear but it can include childhood trauma, experiencing the death of a loved one at a young age, abandonment, and of course, personality disorders. Through projecting an impression of a sick person, the individual may get attention or care that they otherwise feel is lacking from their lives. Patients can be found interfering with a wound to keep it open or tampering with blood and urine samples. Or they can simply just

insist that intense pain and other symptoms are happening to them, when they just aren't. It's different from a psychosomatic illness, which is when psychological factors like stress precipitate or aggravate specific physical diseases, like ulcers, asthma, dermatitis, arthritis, hypertension, etc. Munchausen's is different because it is deliberate. Which brings us to a difficult question in Robin Victoria's story. To what degree was Victoria faking her pain? Just how conscious was Victoria that her symptoms just weren't there? And just how much was she really in control?

In all honesty, I don't have a definitive answer for you. I look at one example and I think, that's fake. There's no way that can be real. And then look at a different example and I say, that cannot be fake. I know that's real. And that was the genius of it. It's the blurring of those two things. It's, it's taking something that has a grain of truth and running with it. So after Cornwall, the pair moved in with Rob's parents. And very quickly, Victoria made it clear that since Rob hadn't immediately made a huge success of his post-grad work life, he was a complete failure and had ruined them by even trying.

Victoria insisted that he should give up his ambitions as a copywriter and that they should just get a flat of their own and get married. So that's what they did. Rob got a job at a theatre company in London and they moved to Flitwick in Bedfordshire. And opportunities for a young Rob to do anything outside home and work vanished into nothing. At this new job, Rob put up a rock-solid defence against questions and invitations from new co-workers. But still, someone managed to get through.

I had, against all the odds, made a friend at work. Someone who had systematically broken through the cast-iron veneer that I had put up, and we were able to talk on a very limited level. And she had started to say to me, look, this probably isn't something that is healthy, because it isn't healthy. Now, I didn't believe her. That's not something that I felt as if I could do anything about. But she had asked me one simple question, which was, what if? What if you didn't have to do it? What if you could leave? I'm not saying that you are going to, but what if you could?

And I had started to think about that at that point. It's interesting, because how comfortable would you feel telling a friend that was defending their partner? They're not like, oh my God, these horrible things are happening to me. They're just like, these things are happening in our relationship and I feel like that's perfectly normal. And you're like, that's not normal. How comfortable do you feel telling that person that they need to leave? Like not even just like, that sounds a bit bad. This person's like, you need to get out of even just like that sounds a bit bad this person's like you need to

get out of there well I have and it's really hard especially when you're very close to that person you don't want to lose them because a big factor in relationships like this is that people are embarrassed and I think everyone deep down knows but a factor can be people are so embarrassed about the situation they're in that they feel like they have no escape from, they stop telling people. And then nobody has the whole story because you know. Which is again, one of the tricks of the manipulation of the abuser, because, and this is going to sound like a strange reference, but it's kind of like the trunchbull, right? In Matilda, there is a line

in there that always stuck with me, which is that the trunchbull doesn't do things by halves. She goes all the way so that the things she does sound so ridiculous that if a child goes home and tells their parents that that's what the head teacher did, no one will believe them because it sounds completely mental. And I think as we go through this episode, it will become clear how much that is at play here. And just as this seed was planted by this friend, any chance of Rob extracting himself from his worsening relationship vanished too, thanks to an unbelievably irresponsible suggestion by a consultant. After endless appointments, a medical professional finally had a potential solution for Victoria's inexplicable agony. First, he asked if Rob and Victoria

were married. And they said that they were. And then this consultant suggested that the pair of them should try and have a baby. Oh, it's so bad. I'm just like, this woman has repeatedly presented herself to multiple doctors, consultants, etc, etc, over the years. And nobody is picking up on the fact that it could be malingering. No one is even thinking that. And their suggestion is, maybe you should have a baby. According to this consultant, some women have said that having a baby helps them with undiagnosable abdominal pain. Even if that is true, which I doubt.

I have seen this on endometriosis help forums or whatever, where people will be like, and I'm so happy for you if it happened. And I can't speak to it because I haven't had a baby. So I don't know. And I haven't had a period that I should have had in a long time. But yeah, there are a lot of people that say after they had a baby that the endometriosis pain got better. And my favorite, like reply to that was, has anybody got a less extreme cure than having a child but yeah no it is something that is uh recommended how it works i don't know apparently there is some evidence for it but still still it is a wild thing to be told and also it's not a million miles away from my sister's keeper is it like it's you know that's not it's not a reason to bring a life into the world, is it? No, totally, totally. Anyway. Victoria had variously linked her agony to period pains, endometriosis and adenomyosis, none of which were ever formally diagnosed. But here it was, finally, after years, a potential solution.

If you take it out of context, then it's utterly insane. Why on earth would you do that in a marriage that I'm not comfortable with, I didn't particularly want, and with a relationship which is driving me further and further and further away from anybody that I know, or my family, or my friends, and then all of a sudden, here is a situation that would put me even further down a road of locking me into that kind of dynamic for a lifetime. You know, having a baby is a decision that cannot ever be taken lightly. When in context, it's in, I will do anything, anything to help you with the pain, which is literally ruining your life,

and then by default, my life. It's taking you out at that point, you know, three weeks of the month, lying on the bed or on the sofa in agony, screaming, medicated, sleeping tablets, morphing tablets. It had taken over everything. And look, before anyone comes for us there are people who go through years and years and years of undiagnosed abdominal pain especially women especially if it is related to something like endometriosis and they don't get the diagnoses that they need

she didn't have a diagnosis she didn't have a laparoscopy to prove that that's what was going on she's just sort of told, have a baby. And if that works for you and you're in a happy relationship, like, you know, all power to you. But that is not what happens here. And I can only imagine that after Victoria gets this recommendation from the consultant that she is fucking over the moon. Because as Rob himself says there, being married is one thing. You can get out of that. Once you have a child with somebody, you're not going anywhere. And she would have been all too aware of that. So of course, they go through with it and had a baby, naming her Grace.

Now any parent will tell you that having a baby changes everything. And although it linked Rob and Victoria forever, at the same time, it also did something even more powerful. It started to change Rob's mind. Then Grace came along, and my world was upside down. Because Victoria believed and had taught me to believe that she was the most important thing in my life. Here was someone who, without question,

was the single most important thing I had ever, ever experienced. And here I was being presented with this little baby for whom I would have to walk over hot coals to protect. And so immediately that took priority over everything else. It took priority over Victoria, which is where that friction started to really become a problem because I then started to look into the future, which I hadn't done before. I started to say, well, what kind of father am I going to be? And I realized that I couldn't be the father that I thought I should be whilst in a relationship with Victoria. And that clash of

world-shattering proportions was cataclysmic in terms of my relationship. If I couldn't be the father that I felt she required, then there was no use for me. That should be my be-all and end-all. And so I was compelled to do something about that. Isn't it interesting how much the whole let's have a baby together thing backfires? Because she thinks this is my route to fully trapping you for the rest of your life. This is the ball and chain, yeah. Yeah, but actually what it does is make Rob think about wanting a better life for his daughter and someone who becomes, I'm sure Victoria wouldn't have anticipated this,

more important than her to him. So after ten years together and six years married, the thought of leaving Victoria for good was suddenly a very real possibility for Rob. And while in the car with his wife one day, before he knew what he was saying, he blurted out loud, I can't do this anymore. It was the first brick torn out of Victoria's wall of control. But it came with a huge risk. I couldn't take her with me because, you know, a father who takes the child with them against the wishes of the mother would be at ease and still pilloried I didn't have the evidence there was no evidence with regards to

Victoria and her capability she would be as she has always striven to be the victim in terms of my decision it had to be my decision and And therefore, by default, unfortunately, the only opportunity I had to make Grace proud of me, to have the family unit that Grace needed, was to risk, as you say, everything. Rob knew that he had to move quickly. Custody battles are tough on fathers at the best of times, and Rob knew that he had to project stability to have any chance of staying in Grace's life. So, as soon as he could, he got himself a nice, presentable house and a steady job. The custody battle itself was a long...

It involved six judgments and three court cases, and dragged out over five years. Still, through that time, Rob made the most of his newfound freedom. He made new friends, he went to the pub, started seeing live music again, and crucially, spent his weekends watching his daughter Grace grow into a lively little girl. And he also met a new partner called Jane,

and they moved in together. Still, Victoria didn't make it easy. I bet she fucking didn't no fucking hell i can't even imagine i have watched the channel for 24 hours in police custody two-parter on this case you guys are gonna find it impossible to find because it has been taken off the internet we actually only got access to it because rob has copies of it she's fucking nuts i just don't know how to impress upon you how nuts this woman is we're going to come on to it i'll talk more in depth about it but i would hate to be jane in this let's just say that so yeah she doesn't

make it easy one custody ruling said that rob's time with Grace started on Friday evening. But because the ruling had assumed that schools let out at 3.30pm and Grace's school actually ended at 3pm, Victoria made a friend of hers go every single Friday that Rob picks his daughter up to sit between Rob and Grace in the playground of her school for that full half an hour, so that Rob didn't get a single extra minute of time with his daughter. How fucking mental do you have to be? Victoria would also make Rob drive increasingly ridiculous distances to pick Grace up. And occasionally she'd burst into

hysterical fits of rage over made-up slights. Once, she turned up screaming at Rob's front door, demanding Grace's clothes, saying that he'd stolen them. She then collapsed on the floor, pretending that he'd assaulted her. And over the years, things got weirder and weirder. In the years after their split, Victoria had gone through a string of boyfriends. Each time, she forced her little girl Grace to call these random men Daddy. These boyfriends would sometimes cross paths with Rob at the school gates, and some of them would occasionally confront him aggressively, saying that he was disgusting, evil, and that he should be ashamed of himself. Rob didn't know what they'd heard,

but whatever stories Victoria was telling them clearly went well beyond Rob just being a bad dad. 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 On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. 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 Lainey 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. Then in 2010, Victoria phoned Rob to tell him that Grace was in hospital. She said that their daughter had a raging temperature, she was lethargic and she wasn't eating. When Rob got to Grace's hospital

bed, Victoria left and Rob stayed for days. Grace had been in hospital for almost a week, when one day Rob asked her why she thought she was so sick, and his four-year-old daughter replied that it might have had something to do with her being wrapped up in thick duvets all night, with her mother shutting all of the windows and putting a hot water bottle in with her on the hottest week of the year. A few months later, when Rob was able to access Grace's medical records, he noticed that the GP's notes had included concerns over Munchausen by proxy, which is very rare to catch it that early. Oh, yeah.

To even fucking think that is very rare. But, unfortunately, the GP's notes ended with no further action. Why? Why on earth was that written down? Because, obviously, I think what's happened is that maybe Grace told the doctors or the nurses about the duvet and the hot water bottle, the fact that they know it's the middle of summer, etc. And they're like, that's fucking weird.

And they also met Victoria. All you would have to do is meet Victoria once to know that she is nuts. So I think they realize, they obviously do, they write down Munchausen by proxy. But why on earth they write no further action is beyond me? Why do they not refer it to social services? Why do they not follow up? Because anyone who is in that profession should know that Munchausen by proxy only escalates and all too often ends in the death of the victim.

But they do nothing. I also wonder whether Munchausen by proxy is such a sensational diagnosis. Oh, yeah. That I wonder whether there is a bit of an attitude of like, yeah, right, you know how rare that actually is. Totally, totally. And the thing is, like, okay, first let me give an explanation

for what Munchausen by proxy is, just in case anybody listening doesn't know. This is a very basic explanation. But basically, it's when a caregiver makes up symptoms or induces an illness in another person in order to gain attention and sympathy from other people. Typically, medical professionals. They're the ones they want to get the attention from. It almost always presents itself between a mother and a child. And again, despite the name change, which was recently changed to fictitious disorder imposed

on another get in the fucking bin i will not say that let's call it what it is medical child abuse and here again it's that thing of what you say is completely right i think doctors maybe don't want to be seen to be hyperbolic being like oh my god it's munchausen by proxy but the thing is we really don't know what the real incidence rate of it is people say god it's munchausen by proxy but the thing is we really don't know what the real incidence rate of it is people say that it's rare but like we actually don't know i listened to a really really interesting podcast about this which i'm gonna save i'm gonna save all my thoughts on this for when we do the full episode on the case that we've got coming up but they made a very good point that we just don't know what the real incidence rate is because it's so hard to detect and here they suspected it and they didn't do anything. After this stint in hospital Rob started

to get mysterious calls in the middle of the night. He would pick up the phone and there would be nothing but heavy breathing on the other end. He also started receiving hateful texts from an unknown number. It really ramped up at that point, you know, everything from drug dealing to gang membership to paedophilia, you know, everything that you can think of that would elicit an emotional response. I was petrified, absolutely petrified. You know, I was living every day wondering what else was going to be thrown at me.

And for my daughter, I was on the board of governors at her school. You know, I was trying to be as active as possibly and having the police involved for harassment on no basis whatsoever, being sort of investigated for being a paedophile, being investigated for physical abuse, all of those things. I was absolutely petrified that this was going to remove what little I was able to gain from my relationship with my daughter, as it has with so many, you know, men in my position. So what do these texts

actually say? I'm sure you can imagine nothing good. They ranged from, where are the drugs you promised me, to, we're going to burn your house down. And what you think will happen when they see what you do to that little girl who lives with you. And finally, you fucking pedo, shit dealer scum, you shit cunt Rob Parks. When you show this, better show them kids the sex films that you've made you sick pedo Rob. Can we just pause on how fucking menacing that is?

Yeah. To be receiving messages like that, calling you a paedophile. From a number you don't recognise. From a number you don't recognise. Also making accusations that you are molesting your own child. Where do you even begin with the fear that you're going to feel at that point? Rob knew

that keeping these texts to himself would only play into the hands of the sender so he showed them all to the police, smart. I just think Rob is the person throughout the story who does everything he's supposed to do. Yes, yes. And it still is so scary a ride that he goes on. Victoria's behaviour was clearly escalating in a dangerous way. And then, on New Year's Day 2014, the violence became very, very real.

It was the new year, and it was very early on with Grace being able to be with me full-time. This was six o'clock in the morning, it was very early. There was a knock on the door and there were two policemen outside. And I said, you know, is there anything I could do to help? And they looked around. They were confused. And they said, well, you know, your car's not on fire. I said, you're right.

It's not. Should it be? And they said, well, we've had a call from you to say that there was a problem. Someone set your car on fire. No, that's strange. But no, everything's fine. Thank you very much. And they went away again.

Fast forward, and it was 5 o'clock in the morning, and I heard a car alarm. It woke me up, and I thought, that's strange, it sounds very, very close. Too close. I got up. My bedroom was at the back of the house. Grace's bedroom was at the front of the house.

I went down the stairs, and I could see back of the house Grace's bedroom was at the front of the house and I went down the stairs and I could see out of the window it was orange and I opened the front door and I looked out and the car that had been parked maybe a foot and a half

away was a blazing inferno the flames were 10, 15 feet high, getting stronger and stronger. And the windows had blown and it was, I've never seen anything like it. And the warmth, the heat that hit me as I opened the door was incredible. It was a furnace. Time is a very flexible concept at this point. I closed the door and I shouted to Jane upstairs, we've got to go. You've got to grab Grace and we've got to leave now. And I was, we were trying to get through the kitchen and there was those sort of French doors at the back of the house and we got to the back of

the house and we opened the doors and we got out the back and there was banging on the gate someone was desperately trying to get into the garden at the back gate and Jane froze and we didn't know who was trying to get in and we didn't know if they were coming in to get us you know what was going on and I was pushing and I was barreing and I got her out of the house. And just as we did that, then the front windows of the house shattered and it felt as if it was a tsunami of sound that

came through. And it was physical. The sonic boom almost went through your body. And they were still banging on the gate and they were trying desperately to get in. They were shouting and you can't hear what they're shouting because of the roar of the fire. And I was thinking, there's no way out. The gate is the only way.

We managed to open the gate, and it was the neighbours. It was the neighbours outside, thankfully. They managed to get us out, and we went round the other side and waited for the police and the fire brigade. It had melted the front windows. It had melted the front windows. It melted the front door. It had got through Grace's bedroom. There was fire damage, soot damage everywhere.

And that was a real wake-up. But of course then the text messages started and the way in which that was coming through whilst the car was still burning, still smouldering, it was constant, it was a barrage of abuse

of these people can get to me and they put Grace in danger. That could have gone so badly wrong. It was a real problem. I mean, it goes without saying how obviously fucking terrifying that entire scenario is. But the bit that really gets me is the fact that somebody made a call to the police before, telling them that the car was on fire. Yeah.

And the police turn up, and it's not on fire and then it explodes. What on earth are you going to be thinking in that moment? Because it then makes it look very much like it's not just your neighbour who's seen the fact that your car is on fire and somebody's done that, which is horrible enough. that somebody is coordinating some sort of planned attack against you and your family while your child sleeps inside and the windows of her bedroom melt from this arson attack. It's crazy and I think this is one of those cases that we do a lot of like sensational stories on Red Handed obviously but this is one of those ones that feels like a very intimate, very domestic, could-happen-to-anybody story, which is why I think it's so scary. In those moments, Rob was running on adrenaline.

He had no time to think. All he knew was that he had to protect his family. Before this, his and Victoria's problems had seemed intense, but could also just be put down to the inevitable difficulties of a rough custody battle. Now, though, the threat to his family's safety had come into sharp focus. My mental shift was simply to draw back. It was to retreat and try and deal with it in the ways in which I had done so while I was still with Victoria. It's to say, lock it down, to hold it tight, make sure it doesn't escape. I needed to be in control of myself. I still was working full-time.

I still had a family to care for. I still had a job to do. A lot of the ways in which life still had to go on, it still had to function. I still had to be a father. I still had to be a husband. Life doesn't stop. And I had to put aside all of these difficulties because I felt that if I let it bleed out, it would completely rule my thought process. I had done so much to walk away from letting that control me that I couldn't allow that to take any more of who I was. The police investigation that followed the fire quickly centred around Victoria and her second husband, Wayne Wood. Wayne was a soldier for the Royal Engineers, and for a few years he had been based in Germany,

where he and Victoria had lived for a while. In interviews, Wayne told police that Victoria had told him that Rob had spent years mentally abusing her, that he was a serial child molester and that he was trying to steal Grace away for sick, depraved reasons. On hearing this, Wayne said he saw red and so when Victoria suggested the arson, assuring him that he'd never get caught, Wayne agreed to it. When the couple stood trial, Wayne Wood was charged to seven years for arson with intent to endanger life.

Victoria, however, was released without charge. Now, it was another year before Victoria fully lost custody of Grace, which again is crazy to me. During which time, Rob and his family went into protective custody and Victoria attempted to steal Grace away to Germany. But finally, it was ruled that Victoria could not be a part of their lives. Or so they hoped. Then Victoria met her next boyfriend, Graham Wall, on the dating site Badoo in 2018. Not one that I can say I've used or even heard of. Badoo.

I think on the continent it's quite popular. Ah, okay. And after three days of chatting online on Badoo, Graham drove out to Victoria's house in the Cambridgeshire countryside to see Victoria in person. And he remembers meeting the 38-year-old like it was yesterday. She was immediately charming, warm and enthusiastic because manipulative people usually are. Then Graham met Grace

and all three of them went out on long walks holding hands. It felt to Graham like he had finally found his soulmate. Poor Grace, the number of men who were dragged into her life that she's forced to go on these fucking long walks with holding hands and call daddy. But anyway, after 10 months, Victoria started acting suspiciously. She'd disappear without saying where she was going and explode into anger at the most innocuous things. Graham became convinced that she was cheating on him. And so, on the 2nd of October 2019, when Victoria said that she was meeting up with an old school friend at her house, Graham saw his chance to catch her out. So he left her house that day, but before he did, he placed his phone under the coffee table, on voice record.

Graham then retrieved his phone the following day, and what he heard was Victoria and another man discussing the murder of her ex-husband, Rob. So with all these dodgy people, you know, how easy is it to get in contact with somebody that can make someone disappear? I don't know, it's not that hard. Basically, I just need to know, like, name, date of birth, picture. Is it costly? Can be costly, you know, It's not that hard. Basically, I just need to know, like, name, date of birth, picture. Is it costly?

Can be costly, you know. Depends what you want done. Just to get someone bundled in the boot of the car and kicked to death and left infected for us. Get that arranged. Other things are very, very, very expensive. We're like 10, 15 grand. Reliable. Need names, addresses.

I know where he lives. Right, okay. Why, who do you want to disappear? I told you that. I just told you my past. Right. It's my ex-husband. He's married twice.

It's the first husband. It's a not very nice one. Right. He's still making my life a living now. Once they've got an address, they'll flatten your car, destroy your car, and then when you come flying outside and realise that address, they'll flatten your car, destroy your car, and then

when you come flying outside and realise that something's gone wrong with your car, they'll just have directly brushed your head. I cough. That's it. Done job. Simples. Cash? Yeah. Simples, no less. Graham, understandably, sat on this recording for about a week, having no idea what to do. And I do have to say, when you watch the documentary on this, Graham is one of the few good people in this. Oh yeah, he's the MVP. Yeah, Graham is like, I just don't know how seriously to A, take this, am I going to look mental if I take it to the police? But also, this is a woman you've been in a relationship with for almost a year by this point. Eventually, Graham confronted Victoria about what he had heard, and he threatened

to report her. She insisted that it wasn't what he thought it was, and then they had an argument, and Graham said that he would delete the message. But, as you already know because we all listen to it, he didn't. He took it to the police instead. Yes, Graham. Yes, Graham. And an investigation kicked off immediately. Police identified the male voice on the recording as Earl Gernon, a convicted drug dealer and violent offender.

And since officers considered him to be the most immediate danger to Rob's life, tracking Earl down was their key priority. They had to make sure any plans that had been hatched about killing Rob Parks weren't playing out in the real world. And oh my god, Earl Gernon is one of the most horrible people. He comes into the police station after he hands himself in because there's like a frantic search for the village in which Earl lives the police are trying to find him it turns up nothing and then both Earl and Victoria separately hand themselves into the police when he comes to the police station the police officer there the duty sergeant is like patting

him down doing a full search and all Earl Gernon does the entire time is like oh you like that don't you oh you I think you like your job a little bit too much and he's like oh you're wearing gloves I call those bitch mittens like it's just non-fucking-stop gross and I feel so horrible for the police officer and they do such a good job they keep a straight face they. They keep it professional. He's horrible. He's a horrible, horrible person. And Victoria arrived at Ely Police Station at 3.15 on the 9th of October, 2019. She told officers that her latest ex-boyfriend, Graham, the man who obviously made the recording, had stolen her phone, purse and keys and that she couldn't get home. No prizes for guessing why she was so keen to get that phone back.

Now again, this is a point of confusion in the story that I didn't get at the start, but basically what she's saying is Graham's handed his phone in with the recording to the police. She turns up and she's like, no, no, he stole my phone, that's my phone, can I have it back please? Because it's got the recording on it. She just thinks she can say whatever she wants and it will become true, or that people will do it. 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. 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, 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+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. But this wasn't her lucky day. Almost as soon as Victoria sat down, officers read her her rights and they arrested her for conspiracy to commit murder. She immediately burst into tears. And this is the part of the Channel 4 documentary that is truly amazing to watch. When Victoria first walks into the room, she's got a gentle limp, nothing major. She says that she's had a procedure done to her back and

she's still recovering. But very soon after she finds out that she's under arrest, you can see the signs of intense pain ramping up on her face. Then the next time the officers come in, Victoria is literally lying on the floor, unable to respond to them. A paramedic was brought in to assess Victoria and decided that she was fit to be detained. So she was pushed out in a wheelchair, which she stays in for the duration of her arrest. And then she's taken to Parkside Police Station for questioning. Slumped over in her new chair with a blanket draped over her legs, a hot water bottle tucked into her lap, and just having finished a lunch of countless dietary restrictions, Victoria looks like the last person you'd suspect to be an abusive murder conspiracist.

And I have to talk about the hot water bottle and the meal. In the documentary, they're interviewing the police and they're like, I've never seen anything like it she has no like awkwardness or no shame she's just like my doctors told me i have to keep my legs warm because i've had surgery um can i get a blanket and a hot water bottle and it's just like you just want to punch her in the face and they're bringing her all these food options because if you hold somebody for long enough like you have to feed them whatever and she's just like i'm gluten i can't have gluten and then when they give her all these other options she's like she obviously doesn't like the sound of any of them so she's like i'll just have a sandwich and they're like you've told us your gluten you can't

have gluten we can't give you a sandwich we legally can't give you a sandwich it's too big a risk for us to take and then they bring her something else that's got no gluten in it some and she's like oh it's got beef in it i'm a vegetarian like shut the fuck up oh my god she is so annoying it's not even the word but that's how that all plays out and yeah she looks very very like woe is me but of course that's the point by this stage stage, officers have tracked Rob down. He had recently had his second child, another daughter, and shortly afterwards lost his brother. So he was still reeling from the shock.

And this brings us, very neatly, back to where we started this episode. The police, on Rob's doorstep, telling him that he was the subject of a suspected murder plot. I was no longer surprised. I was concerned that it had escalated even further. Every time you hear of something else, you sort of are resigned to, OK, what's next? It had been, by this point, probably about six, six and a half years, seven years. And so I was surprised it was coming back. I refused to give in to it.

I absolutely refused. If she wanted to find me, there are private investigators who will be able to find me, I'm sure, very, very easily, very, very quickly. I still have a full-time job. I still have a full-time position. You know, I am not hiding. I'm careful. Absolutely very, very careful, and I'm particularly careful with my children. But I'm not going to hide away. I'm not going to

give her that power. I'm not going to give her that control over me and the rest of my life and the rest of my children's lives. Paranoia is not something that I want to recognise, I refuse, and I actively rail against it, because spending any time looking over my shoulder for something that may or may not happen is no life. So now the police had Victoria in custody. But the charge of conspiracy to commit murder is a tricky one to prove. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, a conspiracy is an agreement where two or more people agree to carry out a criminal scheme into effect. The criminal act is the agreement. Then again, a clear agreement

has to be proved to have been made. That means there needs to have been more than a single hypothetical conversation. So proving Victoria's guilt wasn't going to be that straightforward. In her first interview, Victoria insisted that what she said on the recording was just a joke. Just a little joke. She said there's no way she wanted Rob dead because then Grace would lose her dad. But we all heard that recording and there's very little room for interpretation. Police had of course also uncovered by this point reports of the car fire. So a pattern was emerging with Victoria. And this pattern included becoming romantically involved

with various men with a history of mental health issues, poisoning them against Rob, and then encouraging them to make him disappear, all the while keeping her hands squeaky clean and evading any blame or capture. Annoyingly, since Victoria was cleared of the arson attack at the time, it couldn't be used as evidence against her now in the case against her versus Rob. So detectives went looking into her past for more examples of extreme behaviour and what they found was far more shocking than they'd anticipated. The police spoke to Wayne Wood, who was still serving his sentence for the arson of Rob's car.

And Wayne said that whilst he'd been in Germany with Victoria, she had continually asked him how easy it would be to take weapons from the army. Wayne also led police to Andrew Peebles, a British soldier who had been posted in Germany at the same time, but in a different regiment, to Wayne. One day, when Wayne and Victoria's car broke down on the side of the road, Andrew saw the British number plate and stopped to help. And even though they'd never met before, conversation soon got on to Victoria's crazy ex-husband.

She told Andrew, the guy that she has just met on the side of the literal road, that her ex was a paedophile who was constantly lying about her And then, Victoria asked Andrew Peebles, a man she has just met, straight up, quote, She's unhinged. Completely. And she's asking Wayne Wood if he can get you a gun, would you do it for us? She's unhinged completely, and she's asking Wayne Wood if he can get her a gun. If this isn't proof that she is actively trying to take it beyond just a fantasy, I don't know what is. So police also got in touch with another man, Hamish Lowry Martin, who Victoria had got to know through Wayne. Hamish had got in with a bad crowd in his native Glasgow

and done time for assault. And while he was detained at Her Majesty's pleasure, Hamish had got to know some very dangerous people, including suspected killers. After knowing him for just a few weeks, Victoria sat in the kitchen of Hamish's houseboat and told him how helpful he'd been and what a good friend he was.

She then brought up all the same accusations about Rob and asked if he'd do her a favour. Like what? Fucking pick you up from the airport? No, she's like, could you sort out my ex-husband? According to Hamish, she wanted to know if he knew any people back in Scotland who are still nutters. That's a quote. Apparently, according to Hamish, Victoria even offered him £5,000 if he could find someone to kill Rob. Another past boyfriend of Victoria's, Russell Dubbin,

told police about multiple people Victoria had approached to take Rob out. I just think it's so, like, kind of no matter how wronged I was by a person, I don't know how many mental gymnastics I would have to do for my brain to be like, oh, hire a hitman. And again and again and again and again and again. So the accounts of solicitation to murder were racking up. Wayne Wood's German guns, Andrew Peeble's roadside request, Hamish Lowry Martin's Glasgow nutters, Russell Dubbin's acquaintances,

and Graham Wall's recording of Earl Gernon. And some even came with an agreed price tag. So it was clear as day. Victoria wanted Rob Parks dead. And she had been trying to find someone to do it for her for years. Something interesting we found from our interview with Rob is that whenever he talked about the other men in Victoria's life, he was never angry or bitter about their roles in the campaign against him. In fact, Rob often spoke about them with a kind of sympathy. He feels sorry for them and recognises them as victims.

Even Wayne, the man who almost burned his house down and killed his daughter. I don't forgive him. Maybe I will, eventually. I don't. But I do understand. I do. What made him do those things? But for the love of God that was me I was that man it doesn't mean to say I forgive what he did he put my family in danger he put my child in danger and that's not something that I have yet been able to forgive him for. That's as far as I've been willing, able to go. With all of these new testimonies secured,

police called Victoria to be brought from Peterborough Prison to Thorpewood Police Station to face questioning. They needed this interview with her if their new evidence was going to have any real impact at trial. But Victoria being Victoria wasn't going to make it easy. And as you probably know, the UK legal system only allows suspects to be detained for 24 hours before being charged, hence the title of the TV series, 24 Hours in Police Custody. And, surprise surprise, Victoria's pain had just got a whole lot worse

all of a sudden. She said that she couldn't go ahead with the interview without her pain medication. And despite prison medics saying that she should be fine to wait until later to take it, she declared that she just absolutely was not fit to interview. But all of her arguing certainly kept the clock ticking. So not ready to give up yet, investigators obtained a search warrant for Victoria's house. As well as the recording, Graham had shown them pictures that he'd taken of giant wads of cash that he'd found stashed in Victoria's bedroom drawers.

So police raced there, and sure enough, after a thorough search, £18,690 in cash was found sealed in a paint tin in Victoria's house. It was proof that she had access to the kind of money she needed if she was to go through with her and Earl's plan. Soon afterwards, Victoria was finally deemed fit to be interviewed. And now there was nothing even she could do to stop the process. Victoria was wheeled in once again to an interrogation room. And predictably, she had nothing to say. She denied, denied, denied. She even said that she'd never known anyone called Hamish, even though police had found

Hamish's number written in her phone book at home. Victoria insisted that she'd never known anyone called Hamish, even though police had found Hamish's number written in her phone book at home. Victoria insisted that she never wanted Rob to be harmed. She didn't know any of these men, and she had never, ever had any conversations about Rob being killed, except for the recorded one, but that one was just a joke. But this time around, the evidence was too compelling. Investigators asked the Crown Prosecution Service to approve charges on all counts,

and all four charges were at last approved. Victoria Breeden's trial started on the 2nd of March 2020. Rob sat in the docks, near the men who'd given statements about Victoria. All these men had been affected by her lies and strange mission of inexplicable revenge but as they were all witnesses they were not allowed to talk to each other. During the trial it was decided that any mention of the arson attack had been dropped from the case and that it would also be removed from Rob's statement. Rob was appalled. How could her arrest, even though she wasn't convicted, she was arrested, for an attack on his family home not to be relevant to this case? And again,

like, it is really weird. And they say that it's because, you know, her husband didn't bring it up. I don't know. It makes no sense because it was because of that attack that he, Grace, and his now wife, Jane, had moved house three times gone into witness protection interrupted grace's schooling and feared for their lives for years jay must really love him eh fuck that's a lot to put up with jesus yeah but again since victoria was cleared at the time it was deemed inadmissible she hadn't been at the scene of the crime and wayne's original confession apparently hadn't included at the scene of the crime, and Wayne's original confession apparently hadn't included her. And since Victoria's team had accepted the rest of Rob's statement, he wouldn't be required to give evidence. So now, all he could do was watch.

Victoria's defence team mainly kept insisting that she just didn't mean it. They said that she never wanted to hurt anyone, and that ex-spouses and custody battles do get ugly, and people do make offhand threats. And when it came down to it, nobody actually got hurt. No plans ever came to fruition, so no harm, no foul is basically their argument. But it is a lot easier to make that argument if you manage to get banned from court the time that Rob's car went up in flames and his front windows exploded. On the second day of the trial, Victoria didn't even bother to show up. An ambulance had been arranged to pick her up in her wheelchair, and once aboard, she complained endlessly of stomach pain, so she was taken to hospital.

And eventually, the judge decided not to waste any more time. The juries and the witnesses were all ready to go. So the trial carried on without her. The next day, Victoria once again pulled a sickie. But this time, the prosecution got a medical assessment. And a few hours later, she appeared in court. Each witness took the stand in turn and detailed the conversations that they had had with Victoria.

The various sums of money she had offered them, the hateful rumours that they'd also heard and spread. And the recorded conversation with Earl Gernon was played, in full, to a silent jury. On the 10th of March 2020, eight days after the trial kicked off, a note was passed to the judge. The jury had reached their decision.

And Victoria Breeden was found guilty on four counts of solicitation to murder. After nine years with Victoria and the 11 years of abuse that followed, Rob was fully, officially vindicated for the very first time. And Victoria wasn't going to evade justice anymore. Three months later, she was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison. Fucking good. Today, Rob lives with Jane and his two daughters, and life is good. Despite the horrors of his journey with Victoria Breeden, he considers himself to be the lucky one. Oh, every day I feel I am incredibly lucky. I'm lucky because I was enabled and I had the support

to make the decisions that I did make. I am incredibly lucky that the people around me now are able to give me perspective that I never had before. I am lucky to be able to do things like this podcast to show that it could be anybody. It genuinely can be absolutely anybody. I am lucky that I've managed to keep my job. There were times in which I was amazed I wasn't fired. And so I feel incredibly lucky that I feel that I am able to talk about it. Still, Rob does acknowledge that it is never completely over. Victoria will continue to be a part of his life, something that he's had to make peace with.

She is Grace's mum. She will be a part of my life, a part of Grace's life, forever. If there was one thing I could say to her is to say that that is a responsibility that she will only attempt to live up to. That's the only thing that should matter. I have hope that I've given Grace the tools, the questions that she needs to ask to make a decision whatever decision that might be it could go any which way and i'm okay with that she's her own person and she has the absolute autonomy to make those decisions it may not be what i, but perhaps it shouldn't be. The decisions I made, I've made them. I'm done.

Now it's her turn. Rob now works with a range of different charities advocating for male victims of domestic abuse, speaking to other survivors and spreading his story, showing those still suffering from abuse that there is another way. The one thing that helped me was that question. If you can just ask yourselves, what if? What if you didn't have to live like this? It took me two years to get an answer to that question. It's not quick. But that sense of

agency, that sense of autonomy, knowing what you're worth and having the ability to grab it is the most important thing in the world. Rob's book contains so many more stories that we just couldn't include in this episode because it's already probably like two hours long. There's so much information and there's so many insights in there on the reality of living under coercive control, standing up to an abuser, parental rights, and also how Rob managed to keep his family life normal through those hellish 11 years. So definitely go and check out Rob's book, Married to the Black Widow.

It's well worth your time. And thank you again to Rob for joining us and sharing his story. And that's it, guys. Until next time. Until next time. Where we will talk about a different story of horrible things. And we'll see you then.

Bye. Bye.