RedHanded - Episode 98 - Sally Challen: A Case of Coercive Control

Episode Date: June 13, 2019

One Saturday morning in November 2010 Sally Challen walked into the kitchen and hit her husband Richard in the head with a hammer. She hit him over 20 times. In the trial that followed Sally was painted as a possessive, jealous woman who murdered her husband in cold-blood. This year, in 2019, Sally won a land mark appeal to have her conviction overturned as a fresh defence was shaped around her mental state owing to the years of emotional and psychological abuse she had suffered at the hands of her husband.  https://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/article/she-killed-her-husband-but-sally-challen-might-be-the-real-victim https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/29/devoted-wife-who-killed-husband-with-hammer-sally-challen https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/sally-challen-appeal-husband-killed-david-court-a8799681.html%3famp   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.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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And welcome to Red Handed. One Saturday morning in November 2010, 56-year-old Sally Challen walked into the kitchen of her husband Richard Challen's home and hit him over the head with a hammer. She hit him again and again, over 20 times, as Richard sat at the kitchen table eating bacon and eggs. And just in case Richard was still alive after the attack, Sally stuffed a tea towel into his mouth and then wrapped his body up in some old curtains. She then wrote a note that said, I love you, Sally, and placed it on Richard's body. Then she washed up the breakfast dishes and drove back to Claygate in Surrey, to the home she was sharing with her and Richard's 23-year-old son David, since the pair had separated a few months ago.

The next day, Sally drove her son David to work and then drove herself to Beachy Head. When she arrived, she called her cousin to confess what she'd done. Then she walked out onto the cliffs. Reports flooded into Sussex police of a woman on the edge of the 500-foot cliffs. For people who aren't British, Beachy Head is probably the most famous spot in the UK where people kill themselves by jumping off cliffs. I'm going to Beachy Head next weekend, actually. Are you?

Well, this weekend. This weekend, yeah. I'm going to stay in Hastings. Oh, weird. And then I'm going to go do Beachy Head to the seven sisters country park oh nice i'm excited someone i can't remember who told me it might have been one of my housemates they said that um i don't know if they were there or anyway a group of their friends were at a restaurant in tower bridge celebrating a birthday and someone jumped as they were having this like birthday lunch and they all sort of had to pretend that it didn't happen oh my god recently like literally last week yeah Jesus I didn't even hear about you

never hear about people jumping off the bridges in London really no I've never heard you hear about like the Humber Bridge but the London bridges just aren't that high like the ones on the river they're not at all wow did they die I die? I mean, I guess we don't know. I don't know. Bloody hell. Pretty unlikely for them to have died. Towerbridge is really not that high. Strange.

Sorry. Anyway, so she's on beachy head. Reports are flooding into Sussex Police of a woman on the edge of the 500-foot cliffs. So negotiators race to the scene. It took the suicide prevention team three hours to talk Sally down. She was escorted to safety and during the rescue, the body of Richard Challen was found. So Sally was arrested on suspicion of his murder. Ten months later, in June 2011, Sally Challen stood trial for the murder of her husband and the whole story was laid out.

The day of the murder, Sally had gone to meet Richard in the house that he was living in following their separation. They were meeting up to talk about moving to Australia to start again and to try and make their marriage work. But when Sally arrived, Richard decided that he wanted a fry up first, but he wasn't going to cook it. So Sally went to the shop. But when she got back, she felt a bit suspicious. She said she felt as if he had tried to get rid of her for a bit. So she checked his phone and sure enough, while she'd been out, Richard had been on the phone to a woman named Susan Wills. A woman that Sally knew that Richard had met on the internet on like a networking website called Dinner Dates. What kind of networking is that? I know, I know.

It's not LinkedIn, is it? No, it's not LinkedIn. And you're suspicious enough of LinkedIn as it is without throwing dinner dates into the mix. I genuinely don't think I've ever used it. Oh, I spend like my whole time on LinkedIn. I've got LinkedIn premium. It's such privilege. I mean, I don't have a premium account to dinner dates, though it does sound like the hunting grounds for like 50, 60 year old men, don't you think? Dinner date. Yeah, absolutely. What was that one that you went on where you had to, what was it called where you had to go with your mates?

Yeah. Smeeters. Oh my God. So Smeeters. I don't even know if they exist anymore. Here is an unsolicited plug for Smeeters if they do. I might bleep it until they pay us. Yeah, bleep it out and they can pay us if they want it. But no, it was basically, it was like, you know, one-on-one single dating can be scary. So join up with two of your mates and we'll match you up with three random guys. And then you can go meet them in a bar and have drinks.

Oh my God, it was so painful. It was so painful. We got there and they just reserve a table for you. And there's a little chalkboard that says, they said my name and the name of their team captain. Oh my God, I hate it. Did you have to wear like team colours? Did you put shirts and skins? Oh my God, don't. It was horrible. And the thing is, they make you fill out a little questionnaire to like say what kind of bar you want to meet at, what kind of guys you want to meet. And we did this very seriously. And then they sent us to the folly in bank. None of the answers that we gave for what kind of guys you want to meet and we did this very seriously and then they sent us to the folly in bank none of the answers that we gave for what kind of place that we wanted to go

would have led us to the folly they were clearly just like whatever that's where everyone goes nothing should ever ever lead you to the folly nobody should ever go there it's a fucking horrible place and when we were sat there at this table with this little chalkboard we'd like look at any group of three guys who would look at us and I'd be like, oh my God, it's them. Oh my God, it's them. And at one point I just put the chalkboard down when I saw these three guys looking because I was like, absolutely not. Because it's totally blind date. God, in the end, they were pretty harmless, like very, very raw, very chinos, very working in banks. And they were like, quote, when we complained about the folly, they were like, quote,

take us somewhere cool. I was like, oh my is done we're done immediately they were like let's go out in Dalston and I was like I am not taking these boys to Dalston so we went to Shoreditch because their type can blend in there take them to Jaguar shoes or something yeah exactly exactly oh my it wasn't even as good as Jaguar shoes. We went to Zig Freed one underbelly. Should have gone to the book club. I've never had a bad night at the book club. Book club's good. I have had a bad night at the book club. But anyway, we're not here to just plug random bars in London. Let's get back to Sally Challen. Where were we? Okay. So Sally checks Richard's phone, sees that he's been talking to this woman named Susan Wills that

he met on this dinner date website. So Sally questioned Richard about this and he told her not to question him. So Sally quietly made breakfast and then went and found the hammer. So this seems relatively simple, right? Jealous wife kills husband because she felt cheated by him. But this case is anything but clear cutcut. Because now, in 2019, nine years later, the case is once again making headlines. In February of this year, Sally Challen won a groundbreaking appeal against her murder conviction on the basis of abuse. And perhaps this seems a little shocking at first, because on the face of it, the murder was committed in cold blood, wasn't it? Her life wasn't in danger at the moment of the attack. In fact, as we said, the pair were planning on getting back together

and Richard was simply, passively, sat there eating his breakfast with his back to Sally when Sally brutally attacked him. Self-defense doesn't really seem applicable here. So why did the courts decide to overturn Sally's conviction in a landmark decision? And why couldn't the abuse that the appeal was built on have been used as a defense in her original trial back in 2011? Because the basis of the appeal for a retrial and the plan that Sally's lawyers had, if they were successful in securing one, was to argue coercive control.

And the reason that this couldn't have been used as a legal defence during Sally's original trial in 2011 was because coercive control didn't become a criminal offence in the UK until 2015. And I think it's a term that isn't still that well understood. And I have to admit, I don't know about you, Hannah, but I don't think I fully understood exactly what coercive control meant before doing the research for this case. Oh no, Philly, I didn't understand it until you explained it to me before we started recording. But I've got it now, guys, don't worry about it. Some of you probably do already know,

we know we have some amazing listeners who work in this space. But for those of us who don't, you're much more intelligent than I am. I know what those words mean separately. But what does it mean in reality? No, it's a really good question. Bearing in mind, it's only been part of the legal framework in this country for the past four years. So the law now describes coercive control as a quote, continuing act or pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish or frighten the victim. And it's important to know that that is within a relationship not just like you doing it to a random person on the street it's like

it's a sustained series of events that now in the past five years has been qualified as abuse under the law is that there yes cool so coercive control includes things like isolating the victim from friends and family constantly humiliating and degrading and threatening them. The government has said that coercive control is primarily used against women and girls. But we know that domestic abuse is not exclusive to women. We talked about it during our Catherine Knight episode. And if you can, we would really, really recommend watching the BBC Three documentary called Abused by My Girlfriend. It's the story of a man named Alex Skeel who almost died due to the physical and psychological

abuse he suffered at the hands of his girlfriend. And I also think it's interesting with the whole coercive control thing when I was reading about it. And it's like, if you spend any time thinking about domestic abuse, like we obviously do, like the people listening I know do. The stuff about isolating the victim from their family, friends, the constant humiliation, the degradation, the threat, all of that feels like what we would already have classified as abuse. And so I think that's why it feels like, well, what's coercive control then? Because wasn't all of that already recognised as abuse? But apparently not. No. I think that's the thing i found shocking yeah that there's no sort of um it is surprising that there hasn't been a stipulation of think yeah you're right like

things like isolation and humiliation all of that sort of stuff i suppose maybe i suppose everybody at some point in their lives maybe quite often feels humiliated and they feel isolated but possibly uh not over a continued length of time because someone else is doing it to them so maybe it seems less extreme than physical violence but i think you're right and i also think that up until this was recognized solely as a standalone form of abuse i think these kind of things that we saw like the intimidation the control the isolation and I think that in the past it's maybe been because those things have been recognized as like the trimmings if you will of like abuse but I think it's always been in conjunction with physical abuse if you're not

being physically abused and he's just or she's just doing these things to you then is it really abuse prior to 2015 UK law said not really yeah and I think that's the thing that I found surprising so let's get back to Sally for a second for a second for the rest of the show it's her story so from the outside the whole story of Sally Challen and Richard is quite bizarre and it's only when you look at their whole marriage and understand coercive control that the picture starts to make sense but before we delve into the Challen challenge marriage let's consider the original trial in 2011. It was a total disaster for Sally. Her defense team didn't even try to use provocation as a defense even though they had reports of control and abuse from those who knew the couple. If they had made this case and had they been

successful Sally's original sentence would have been for manslaughter rather than murder a much lesser sentence provocation like self-defense is very hard to prove but they didn't even try this is the thing i think they could have made the case for provocation they could have made more of a point around sally's clear mental like condition during the murder when she killed him because the next day she goes and tries to kill herself and those three hours that it took chaplains and a suicide prevention team to talk her down the whole time she's just confessing to it she just keeps saying what she did like she doesn't come across like a totally well woman I think the

challenge was when she stood in the dock she kind of looks like a very respectable woman. So she didn't look quote unquote crazy. And I think that worked against her. And instead, as Hannah said, instead of like making any sort of case for provocation or mental illness, the whole trial just feels like it was dominated by the prosecution and their narrative. They went after Sally, painting her as a possessive and jealous wife. They told the court how Richard and Sally had separated after three decades of marriage, and even though they were once again trying to make it work, Sally just couldn't let go of all of her suspicions. She was obsessed with checking Richard's phone and accusing him of being with other women. In this version, Richard is a patient but weary husband with a crazy wife. Sally and Richard were apparently

trying to reconcile after their separation, but the prosecution told the court that Sally was out of control. They talked at great length about how she checked Richard's emails, hacked his messages, and even counted his Viagra. Wow. Yeah. Now, when Sally was asked to explain why she had killed Richard, her explanation in court was, quote, I don't know. I just don't think he wanted to be with me. I don't want to say she does herself no favors because she's not. I don't think she's totally together. And I don't think that she receives very good defense, like legal counsel.

No, I don't think she has a good counsel. And I also think if the next day she's trying to kill herself like she's quite resigned to it really like she's not she thinks her life is over anyway so she probably doesn't see the point of putting up a fight because you're very right what you know what's the point from her perspective no i think you're very right as we go on to find out i think richard was her entire life and after she killed him she didn't have one anymore. That's a really good point. But I think you're absolutely right.

I think she, you know, she wasn't together. And throughout the trial, Sally never denied what she'd done. She admitted killing Richard over and over again. And when it was argued that she was not suffering from, quote, abnormality of mind, there wasn't much pushback from her defense team. Susan Wills, the woman from the alleged dinnerdate.com affair, even turned up to testify and told the court that her and Richard's relationship was purely platonic and that Sally was just crazy. I kind of want to call bullshit on that one.

Yeah, I agree. I don't know if I have enough information, but I just think, why are you sneakily calling her? But then I suppose from his perspective, he's going to say, well, my wife is nuts. I can't be on the phone to a woman who's my friend when she's in the house. That's how nuts she is, you know? So you can play it from both angles. Yeah.

But my gut feeling is Bad Rich is a bad man. I think so. His history, as we go on to discuss, would definitely suggest that Susan Wills is not just his friend. Yeah, and it's possible that Susan Wills, maybe just his friend. Yeah, and it's possible that like Susan Wills, maybe he had just never seen his abusive side. And she, I think if she's standing in the dock, she's like, you know, there's, it's pretty obvious that Sally is going down for this.

Why would I incriminate myself in any way? Definitely. I think whether Richard and Susan were having an affair is sort of neither here nor there. Like it's not really got anything to do with whether Susan was sleeping with Richard. I think the point is she comes there, like you said, to defend Richard because as far as she knows, it's either this guy who was her friend or either this guy that she was sleeping with and his wife killed him and he probably spent their entire relationship telling her that his wife was crazy and then he ends up being murdered. So of course

she's going to come there and defend him, you know? It makes sense why Susan does what she does. I guess some of you listening might be like, we're being a bit hypercritical of the defense team of the whole 2011 trial. And it is easy to look back and be like, what the hell was going on? The thing is, we do have to remember, like we keep saying, that coercive control wasn't recognized by the law back then. And Harriet

Wistrick, who is Sally's current lawyer, makes a good point that, quote, outside of specialists working in the field at the time, domestic violence was seen as physical, black eyes and broken bones. But I guess you could also definitely argue that the defense would have had such specialists available to them. They just didn't use them to build any kind of defence for Sally. And even if coercive control wasn't in the law, no one is asking them to have got her off, like, quote-unquote, scot-free. It was building, like, a defence, building a case for her defence to at least get it commuted to manslaughter.

And also, that's how the law gets changed. It gets changed when it gets challenged in the courtroom. That's how laws change. Yeah, you're totally right. It just seems so lazy when you look back at it, doesn't it? Yeah, it does a bit, honestly. I mean, without reading what their argument was, I don't know, but it does seem like a weird thing to miss off.

So back then in 2011, instead of abuse or provocation, the plea that they entered was diminished responsibility, using Sally's history of depression. Okay, good try. Like, I think that's something. But the thing is, the prosecution psychiatrist just disputed the diagnosis, and that was basically enough. So they're basically like, look, Sally has a history of going to the doctor about being depressed.

They're like, no, no, no, she doesn't. I query that diagnosis, or whether that has enough to do with why she did what she did and as we've said before on this show you can find experts to argue any side of anything and that's what they did oh what a shame i know and the shocking thing looking back now is that almost none of richard's, which we will get onto so don't panic, was barely mentioned in the trial. Even Sally's brother queried the lawyers on this, but they made the point that attacking the murder victim may reflect badly on Sally. So, and I do get it, I do understand where they're coming from, but it meant that the jury at Sally's first trial never knew anything about the abuse that Sally suffered at

Richard's hands. So after the seven-day trial, Sally was found guilty of murder and she was sentenced to life. During sentencing, Judge Christopher Critchlow told her that she had been eaten up with jealousy at Richard's friendships with other women. And he also said, you are somebody who killed the only man you loved and you will have to live with knowing what you did. And I think this is an interesting point, like the 2011 trial. I think there's so many interesting facets to it. It's the idea of, think about the crime. Richard is sat at the table with his back to Sally.

She beats him over the head 20 times, stuffs a tea towel in his mouth, wraps him up in some curtains and then leaves. I just think people couldn't wrap their heads around how that could be anything other than just cold-blooded murder. And also the prosecution twists everything. They bring in the whole fact,

just the mistiming almost of the fact that Richard has that call with Susan Wills. They're able to bring Susan in, make it seem like Sally was just driven and motivated by jealousy and that this is the perfect, it's like the perfect narrative, isn't it? I cannot believe I've never said this on the show before, but my granddad's best friend was a murderer. So very, very similar situation, actually. He was really, really struggling with depression and his wife told him it was time to go to church one sunday sunday morning and he snapped and he strangled her with a tea towel went to prison for life wow yeah in like the my mom's gonna text me immediately when she hears this

and correct me but it's some like in the 50s i think 50 60 somewhere then so like he was going away for life there was no one there was no way like i think my granddad like wrote to him in prison and stuff he might be out now actually but he'll be really old wow he might be dead I don't know yeah so it happens coloring every episode with our own with our own stories here no I'm surprised I can't believe you've never said that before on the show well I don't think we've we've had a similar case but it's very similar situation definitely you don't believe in ghosts I get it lots of You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them.

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To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. So let's leave the 2011 trial and fast forward to Sally Challen's 2019 appeal. So Sally's lawyer, Harriet Wistrick, who is the co-founder of the organization Justice for Women, and the lawyer who blocked the release of the black cab rapist John Warboys earlier this year, Harriet always knew that this case was going to be a tough one because Sally Challen's case really was the first of its kind, legally speaking, in this country. Because Sally was claiming to have been abused nine years after having been convicted of murder and she had not been subjected to sustained, persistent physical violence.

There were no photos of black eyes or bruised bodies for her lawyer Harriet to use, no broken bones or hospital visits to convince a jury. Instead, what Harriet Wistrick had was numerous witness contemporaneous statements that had been taken in 2010 but that had not been used in court back in 2011. She also had pages and pages of emails from Richard to Sally and hours of interviews that she had conducted with Sally over the nine-year incarceration period and she also had a perfect record for Sally prior to the murder of her husband. That's a lot of information that she does have. I think the key thing that this case will keep coming back to is, is one going to say

that physical violence and physical pain, broken bones, black eyes, bruised bodies is the only kind of pain and suffering a person can suffer from. Because what this case shows is that even if someone doesn't raise their fist to you, the other kind of harm they can do to you needs to be taken into account when you look at a crime like this. Because even if you were to have a jury trial, imagine one scenario like a Sally Challen case even now when coercive control is in the law versus another case where the defense can show photo after photo after photo of the victim with black eyes, broken bones, hospital visits. Honestly, don't you think that that one would still sway more people, wouldn't it? Oh, 100%, 100%. But I always think that like, you know, if you've ever been in a significant

amount of physical pain, I don't think I remember it as clearly as being in very severe emotional pain. I feel like that stays with you much longer. I think that's just my opinion. No, I think it's true as well. And at the time, there have been studies into this. And there is always that thing that people say that the body can't actually differentiate between physical pain and emotional pain. If your body's in pain, your body's in pain. And I don't know how true that is. I've just read it. I thought it seems like it kind of makes sense. And I think you're right. I much more clearly remember times when I've been in emotional pain than when I've been in physical pain those scars are probably just as deep if not maybe deeper not to diminish or undermine any kind of suffering fucking hell but it is interesting into how that would still be perceived and interpreted by the normal person

in a jury I think you're right I think the most impactful thing you can put in front of a jury is someone with two black eyes and a broken nose. Yeah, exactly. It's very subjective to say, well, he humiliated her and degraded her over a period of 31 years. That's a very difficult thing to show a person. Well, to prove. To prove that as well. Exactly. And as we said, Harriet did have all of this information. She had all of this stuff that she had amassed that just was never used in the 2011 trial, plus the stuff that she's put together on her own with Sally's help. And with all of this, Harriet Wistrick was hoping to show that for 30 years, Richard's behavior had pushed his wife to the edge. But the question became, would this be enough to explain a murderous hammer attack?

And during the appeal, retired forensic social worker Professor Stark was called to give his expert opinion on coercive control. He said that, quote, In its extreme, coercive control creates a hostage-like feeling of entrapment, similar to being a prisoner of war. Stark also told the court that homicide is the ultimate risk of coercive control, and he made it clear that Sally's attack on Richard wasn't a result of jealousy over the latest signs of Richard's infidelity, as had been the narrative at her original trial, but rather as a consequence of decades of psychological manipulation and domestic abuse that would have left Sally feeling

trapped and unable to escape unless either by suicide or murder. Just because coercive control was now recognised by the law, what would the other players involved in this case think? Well, again, the response was pretty unprecedented. The Challenger's two sons, David, now 30, and James, 34, have stood by their mum throughout the whole thing. But it wasn't only them. Neighbours, friends and family, as well as Richard's own family and even his oldest friend, were all behind Sally's appeal. Usually in these cases you've got the family of the murdered man going after the woman. But no one came out in support of Richard. And when no one is coming forward to support a man who was murdered in his own home as he sat and ate breakfast, it really does say a lot about what he must have been like.

And we don't have to just imagine what he was like. We can just go right back to the beginning. Sally met Richard when she was 15 and he was 22. This in itself is important. She was so young when they met. She was a child and from then on for the next three decades until she killed him, Sally never knew a world or a life without Richard Challen. She never had the chance to experience any other relationship. The way Richard was with her was all she knew. There's nothing wrong with marrying your childhood

love but it probably helps if you're both children or one of you isn't 22 and the other is just 15. And it would also help if one of you isn't an abusive piece of shit. And let's clear something up right now, because I got confused before Saruti set me straight. What we're not saying here is that he was a piece of shit, therefore he deserved to die. Nobody is arguing that because that was my initial, when I was reading through it, I was like, oh, like, I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that. They're just saying that, oh, he was an abusive asshole. Therefore his death isn't murder, it's manslaughter.

That's not what this is. What we're trying to sort of tease out of it is that the abuse he had sustained had an effect on her mentally and it had only been put into the law abuse she had sustained had an effect on her mentally and it had only been put into the law after she had been charged correct me if you feel i'm going too far with this but imagine a case where somebody like abducts somebody or somebody joins a cult or into some like sex thing and then they're just like programmed and conditioned for 30 years and eventually they're just like what the fuck and they're not come to their senses, but they see no other way out and they end up killing the

person. Sally was just 15. And as we go on to talk about an incredibly like, she was naive. She was so naive. And I think she just fell into Richard's sphere and then never left. And he took full advantage of her. And yeah, it's like she never, she has like total arrested development in every sense. I just think she couldn't have coped with a life without Richard, but she also just wanted to get away from him, I think. I don't know. It's very, very complicated. And we are not experts. Let's just clarify that now. We are not experts in domestic abuse. I did consult my friend, Danielle. Danielle, hi, Danielle. Thank you not experts in domestic abuse. I did consult my friend Danielle. Danielle, hi Danielle, thank you very much for your help. Danielle works at a domestic abuse charity. She

was super helpful in like helping me understand about coercive control and about these things, but still I'm not an expert. Now, as we mentioned, Sally did have a very, very sheltered childhood growing up. Her father, Reginald Charles Napier Jenny, was a brigadier in the Royal Engineers and spent most of his life in India and he died when Sally was just six years old so she was brought up by her mum in Surrey and she was the youngest of five and by quite a bit her four older brothers were teenagers by the time that she was born and her family were very old-fashioned the boys all went to boarding school and went on to like high-flying careers.

But Sally's mum took her out of school just after her O-levels. And I think O-levels is a bit old school. I think O-levels is like when you're 17. Like GCSE, so you're 16. So it's like pre-A levels. A-levels stay the same. Okay, that's it. At that point, her mum's like, you've had enough of an education. You're out. Because her mum didn't think it was the right thing for a girl to go on to higher education. Sally was brought up thinking that her only option was to be a wife and a mother. And again, there's obviously nothing wrong with that, but it's not great if you're told that that's the only thing you can ever do. Enter Richard Challen. He was a local man, charming, funny, charismatic, and he had a good job dealing cars. Remember, when Richard met

Sally, he was 22. That's just, I can't hammer that home enough. She's 15. But he had an old school mate called Dellen Blackmore, and he was actually the one who introduced them. Because Dellen had met Sally on a double date, but seeing as he was already going out with someone, he thought that Sally might be a good fit for Richard. And he told his friend, quote, she's really beautiful, sweet and kind. She'd do anything for you. She's 15. Even this year's cast of Love Island, I'm like, he's 20. Am I allowed to find him attractive at 28? I don't think so. Which one do you think is attractive? No, we were having a group discussion in my house of like, are we allowed to find any of these fetuses attractive? I see, I see.

Because none of them are very attractive this year. I don't like any of them, man. I really, they all really wind me up. Oh no, I feel like we just have to power through and become invested in their pointless lives for the next two months. We've got no choice. We've got no choice. Oh my God.

But anyway, yeah, I just find this so shocking. This guy, Dellen, just like, she's 15. She'll do anything for you, mate. Really? Really? Hmm. Gross. Bad news.

But as it turned out, Dellen was right. Because Sally would do anything for Richard. And from the start of their relationship, 15-year-old Sally, because she's still at school for another year and a bit, would stop at Richard's flat after school to clean it and cook for him. But Richard was not as committed to Sally as she was by any means, because there were always other women. And at 17, Sally became pregnant. But one of her brothers took her to have a late-term abortion. Sally's family never liked Richard. They never like him. So I think rather than just being like, right, now you have to marry him, as I think some people probably would have done at the time, that her brother's

like, no, and goes and gets her an abortion. And I think he was hoping that there was just no links, no ties between the two of them, that it would just fizzle out and it would end. They never like him. But when the same brother after the abortion approached Richard about the pregnancy, all Richard said with a shrug was, it could have been anybody's. Does Richard strike you as the kind of man that if he thought Sally was sleeping with someone else that he'd still be with her?

No, absolutely not. And when does she have time between school and cleaning and cooking for you? When's she running around with these guys then? It's just yeah another thing to undermine her in the eyes of her family not only did she get herself knocked up but mate just because i'm a boyfriend's not even couldn't might not even be mine because your sister's a whore like that's what he's saying by that so anyway soon after the termination sally challenged

richard about seeing other women because he didn't really try and hide his little trysts none of it was a secret so she knew and i think she finally built up the courage to question him on it and his response was to drag her down the stairs and throw her out of the front door sally claims that this scared her so much that for the rest of their marriage she was terrified to confront him in case he did it again and this is the thing there are examples of times when Richard was physically abusive to Sally but he often didn't need to be all abusers like Richard Challen are looking for is control and for some of them like Richard if you can gain control simply through fear then you don't need to raise your fists I think that's an important point isn't it because it's like um normally when an abuser hits somebody it's like going to be in a place where no one else can see it. Or they'll

hit you and then make you stay inside or cover it up with makeup or do something, you know? If you don't need to do that and go through the hassle of that, and you can just do it with a look, with a word, with the fear, with the intimidation, then you're already achieving your own goal without having to even get your hands dirty. And I think that's the kind of man Richard was. But despite the fear and despite the abuse, Sally married Richard. Del and Blackmore, the man who introduced them, was best man and he remembers the wedding to have been an awkward event. Sally's family weren't happy at all.

But from a distance, for at least a while, Sally and Richard seemed like a normal happy family. Richard soon got his own car dealership in Surrey and they had two sons. And Sally was the perfect stay-at-home mum and housewife. But Claygate in Surrey, where the Challens lived, was a small community. And just like any such community, gossip was the best currency. A man named Jack Cowdy, whose daughter was the same age as James Challen, the elder of the two Challen boys, got to know the family well. And he said that Richard would often make him feel very uncomfortable by constantly and publicly criticising Sally. He'd say things to Sally like,

my God, you've got a fat arse in front of everyone just to score cheap laughs. Wouldn't that just fucking crush you? Of course it would. How could it not? And this is constant. And he wouldn't stop with small humiliations like that. One Christmas, Richard sent everyone a Christmas card with the weirdest picture on it. This is unbelievable.

It was him leaning on a car bonnet being straddled by a naked woman. He's sending that to his family and her family and their friends. Like how humiliating. That's literally the only word I can use to describe it. That is humiliating. And he's doing it to humiliate her. He doesn't think it's funny. Of course he is.

He's everything he does is in service of Richard to and to humiliate Sally. That's it. Now, James and David, the couple's sons, even remember Richard at first being a kind father. For the first 10 years, the boys thought that everything was fine. But I think it's likely that as the boys became older and entered their teens, they started to see what other people saw. When David was 13, he remembers that his mum got a job with the police federation. And from then on, all of the household spending had to come from Sally's income. While Richard bought himself a Ferrari and a Cartier watch. Again, this is just another form, it's like economic abuse.

Like, he has all this money as his own car dealership. Like, he's doing well. But no, my family, she can pay for the groceries and all that boring shit. I'm going to look after myself. Yeah, my money's my money, her money's everybody's. Exactly. And both David and James remember their dad's constant insults towards their mum. He would always call her, quote, thunder thighs. And if anyone ever complimented her, he would say, well, you haven't seen her without her clothes on and like in most abusive homes the boys said that the atmosphere changed when their father got home

everyone was always on edge around Richard but they always described their mother as being kind caring and incredibly loving and the thing is when Richard got home if something like dinner wasn't to his liking he'd start a fight if the boy spoke while he was watching tv he'd start a fight and he'd not let anyone watch tv when he wasn't there and he'd even lock up the phones when he went out this is in the 90s it sounds like the 50s the way he yeah yeah absolutely i keep forgetting that it's the 90s this is so recent this is in the 90s now everything about his marriage and his family, as we said, was all about Richard. And according to Sally, in the jailhouse interviews that she gave her lawyer, Harriet Wistrick,

their sex life was the same. It was all just about what Richard enjoyed. Sally told Harriet, and this, I just find this also so horrible. Sally told Harriet that when he wanted sex, Richard would send Sally upstairs to undress and shower because apparently Richard didn't like to see her naked and because he claimed that she smelled. And he told her this all the time and in front of people. Sally was so worried about it that she even went to the doctor and the doctor assured her that she was normal and didn't smell. Now Sally also disclosed

to Harriet about one particularly brutal incident that occurred one Christmas. Dylan Blackmore, remember the best man from the wedding and the man who had introduced them, had given Sally a hug and a friendly kiss and Richard had spotted it. That night Richard anally raped Sally as punishment for the kiss. This brutal act of sexual violence and humiliation was just one incident in a campaign of abuse handed out by Richard to Sally on a daily basis over the course of 30 years. While he felt he could anally rape his wife over being kissed by his friend, Richard had multiple women on the side. Once Sally had even followed him and saw him enter a massage parlor, a happy ending situation. It was raided soon after and found to be a brothel where trafficked women were held. There was a Chinese restaurant in the town I went to school called Lots of Rice

and it was closed down for being a brothel. Wow. Like, you think that the men like Richard who were going to this particular place where all these sex-trafficked women were held didn't know that those women were trafficked? Fuck off. He is just such a piece of shit. They they don't care they don't even ask themselves the question you know it's not something that would come into his head of course and if you can anally rape your wife and fucking say all the things and do all the things you do to her what do you care about some random bitch in a massage parlor sally was struggling her doctor's records show that she was in and out of the gps

complaining of sleeplessness low low appetite and general stress. And increasingly, Richard isolated Sally. He never approved of Sally seeing friends on her own. And this is classic. The stuff we see Richard Challen do are linked to multiple forms of power and control. He abused Sally sexually. He used emotional abuse to destroy her sense of self-worth by constantly belittling her. He used intimidation to scare her and to keep her in line.

And he used isolation to control what she did and who she saw. But research into coercive control done by anti-domestic violence campaigner Evan Stark has shown that coercive control can be very, very hard to recognize because, he says, it involves micro-regulation of some of the daily activities already commonly associated with women in their traditional role as homemakers, mothers, and sexual partners. Because of the persistence of these traditional gender role expectations, it can be difficult to tell the difference between coercion and romantic love.

And because of compliance by the abused partner with the abuser's demands in order to avoid fights or repercussions, it can make prosecuting coercive control really, really difficult. So just because coercive control has been added to the law in this country, it doesn't often mean that it's going to be easy to prove. But it is a huge step forward because it takes into account what many, many survivors of domestic abuse have stated for years, that the physical assaults were not the worst part, but rather it was the isolation,

the humiliation and the domination that broke them down. It is also incredibly difficult to police coercive control because it's so personalized to the victim by their abuser and it can cover a range of behaviors. This is the thing when it comes to coercive control because it's not a fist that abuser knows you so intimately they know your deepest fears and they use them against you. So for what you know for Sally being told in front of everybody that my god haven't you got a ass, might not affect somebody else who doesn't have that as something that they already feel cripplingly insecure about. But he knows that that's what's going to upset her. And he does it because of that. Another thing that Richard would do to

Sally that is again, incredibly common in abusive relationships is he would cause her to question her own sanity by gaslighting her. Whenever Sally did question him about his behaviour or about other women, he'd call her mad, he'd minimise, he'd shift the blame onto her, whatever it took. All of this behaviour would have made Sally feel more and more worthless, but simultaneously more and more attached to him. Because isn't she lucky, despite how stupid and ugly and fat she is Richard was willing to put up with her. Finally after 31 years of marriage in November 2009 Sally left Richard. She said that it was when she watched the brothel that Richard used to visit being raided on TV that

she knew that she had to leave. So she used some money that she had inherited and bought a small house and moved out but Sally really struggled to cope without Richard. She was miserable. She didn't know what to do because Richard wasn't there to tell her anymore. Everyone told her she just needed to give it time, but Sally couldn't manage. And she asked Richard to take her back. Can I also tell you an interesting fact? You may already know it, in which case it's not so interesting. Where does the term gaslight come from? Oh oh my god i literally looked this up the other day i read it and i was like that's so interesting is it a film it's a play but basically gaslighting which is obviously a form of psychological abuse in which the victim

is gradually manipulated into thinking they're going insane or doubting their own sanity comes from or originates from the 1938 play Gaslight, which apparently in the US is known as Angel Street, by British dramatist Patrick Hamilton. And there were two film adaptations, actually, of it. So, yeah, first play, then movie. And it's about a devious man who slowly manipulates his wife into thinking she's going insane so that he can conceal

his true identity from her so yeah good fact i think i feel like you did a really good succinct job of explaining gaslighting then it's definitely something that i've struggled to explain to people before i think it's one of those things that i just learned the meaning of it in the context in which it was used rather than actually understanding what the word is i did i think that's how i did until i looked up that fun fact. And sorry, back to this after a little fact moment, though we haven't been too successful in the past with where words have come from, but I'm pretty sure about that one. So take that to the podcast bank. So yeah, as Hannah said, Sally asks Richard to take her back. And Richard responds to this in an email with the message,

and this is verbatim what he says to her in this email, I will consider your return only on these terms. You will continue and complete the divorce only with a £200,000 settlement. And obviously, immediately, alarm bells. So yeah, let's get back together. But you go through with the divorce and only ask for 200 000 pounds that is way less than what she would have been entitled to after 31 years of marriage he's loaded and it's also so like clinical isn't it it's not like oh darling i've missed you so much i can't believe you were gonna make me live on my own it's like okay fine

but we're gonna do it like this we're gonna do this and we're gonna get divorced and you're only gonna take 200 000 pounds of the all the money that I've earned in the last 31 years that you've been married to me and cooked and cleaned and had me two children and serviced me sexually, etc, etc. Then he carries on saying, and when we go out together, it means together. So he's saying you don't get to go out on your own. This constant talking to strangers is rude and inconsiderate. And he says we will agree to items in the home together. To give up smoking, to give up your constant interruptions when I'm speaking. It always astonishes me even when people who are like him, like objectively bad people, abusive people, are never the monsters in their own story. Of course not.

He thinks it's all her fault. He feels so justified in everything he says. The fact of how pathological he is, the fact that he goes out and sleeps with all these random women. But he genuinely, no irony in the fact of him saying, you talking to strangers is rude and inconsiderate and you're going to stop doing it. I mean, you really can convince yourself of anything, can't you? I do all the time. I convince myself that getting a Chinese takeaway is fine. It's fine. It's better than fine. It's delicious. Even after this fucking clinical email, Sally just wants to get back together with Richard. It was an awful life, yes, but it was the only one she'd ever known. It's like she's

got Stockholm syndrome. She's got Stockholm syndrome. Yes, Philly, yeah. Without him, she was just an adult woman figuring out the world on her own for the first time. And this is typical in abuse. Make someone so dependent on you as the abuser that they can't leave you. Sally tried. She tried to leave him and now she was coming back. For Richard, it was perfect. The two began a relationship again. And as we mentioned at the start of the show, Richard suggested that they start a new life together in Australia.

Despite really wanting to just get back together with Richard, Sally did have concerns. She was worried about the terms that he'd offered her for the reunion. If she agreed and it didn't work out again, she'd be left with far less of their money than she was entitled to because yeah the big concern is he's saying let's get back together but divorce me first and only take 200 000 he could have easily after the divorce said lol joke we're not getting back together and now i get to keep all the money and she's not stupid she does recognize this and sally stopped and started divorce proceedings against him 13 times during their separation.

I mean, that tells you that she just doesn't know what she's going to do. But now they were making a go of it. And Sally's doubts in the relationship and whether he was going to fleece her of all of this money was culminating in her checking his phone and reading his messages. What if he was only pretending to want to make it work so he could take all the money and run off with another woman? Wouldn't put it past him, honestly. Get her hopes up, talk about Australia, and then just run off with all that money. Like, otherwise, why get the divorce? If you're getting back together, why get a divorce? And in the weeks leading up to Richard's murder, Sally's sons knew that she was back in touch with

him. They said that she was distracted, unfocused, she was slipping back into her old ways. They just knew. And they knew the story so well that they said that they didn't even bother asking her why she was getting back in touch with him. And the thing is, even now, even after everything, Sally still says,

I still love him and I still miss him so much. And I think that this more than anything, to me, really shows how complete Richard Challen's control was over Sally. Think about it. Not one person, not a family member, a friend, a neighbour, not anybody has ever really had anything positive to say about Richard. No one seems to have have mourned his death. No, no one's coming to bat for him either. No, no one comes to bat for him. Only Susan, what's her face?

Only Susan, but yeah. Even then, she just testifies because the prosecution probably asked her to and then you never hear from her again. The only person who ever does sort of mourn anything or ever seems to grieve Richard's loss is Sally Challen, his devoted wife. So after the landmark appeal was granted, we were all waiting for the retrial before we covered this case. But if you're listening to this on the day of release, as of six days ago, so last Friday the 7th of June 2019, the courts accepted Sally Challen's plea of manslaughter. And so at the

Old Bailey, she was sentenced to nine years and four months time served for the manslaughter of her husband. So there will be no retrial. And Sally Challen is now a free woman. The verdict is certainly significant here in the UK. The judgment does seem to show a greater understanding by the courts of the effects of psychological abuse and it does something at least to move us away from the notion that domestic abuse can not only be defined as physical and it will certainly pave the way for other women in similar situations to Sally in future and perhaps give hope to others already behind bars. I think the right decision was made here,

overturning it from murder to manslaughter, giving her time served, no need for a retrial. She was released immediately on Friday and now she's at home with her two sons. She's had nine years and four months. I don't think, even if you went back to 2011, the Sally Challenge shouldn't have been punished in any way. I do think she should have served time. She should

have served a custodial sentence, but for manslaughter, I think, not for murder. And luckily now that's been rectified. Yeah, because of her mental state, which was a direct consequence of the abuse that she suffered at the hands of her husband. And this is the thing that's interesting. When I was reading about this, some people are obviously very, very happy about very happy about this lots of people not some people lots of people are very happy about this they feel like this is a landmark decision this is going to give a lot of hope to as Hannah said a lot of women who are behind bars a lot of women who are in this situation or may find themselves in this situation in the future but when you do read the actual comments from the judge at the Old Bailey on in or men people in violent relationships who are suffering abuse people in abusive relationships are much more likely to be struggling with mental

illness as a result of the abuse and that the abuse exacerbates the mental condition that they may have that's not really talked about if you know what i mean it's just saying oh she wasn't mentally well therefore let's overturn it from murder to manslaughter didn't feel like it was that explicit that they spoke about the abuse being the exacerbating reason for why she was feeling that way but I don't know if I'm just like you know splitting hairs and again like I said I'm not a lawyer we're not experts I'm just thinking now an interesting quote that I did read about this verdict came from a human rights lawyer called Joel Benethen QC who also described the case as landmark but stated that

quote the importance of this campaign is not that it changes the law but through a combination of argument in court and publicity out of court the crown prosecution service have done what they should have done before which is to accept that if an abused woman kills, very often it should be seen as an offence of manslaughter and not as an offence of murder. And this is the key thing, you know, this coercive control has been in the law in this country for the past four years, but this is the first time we've seen it be used, you know, to overturn a ruling. So I think what Joel says is important is that the reason that we should consider this a landmark case is because the publicity it got out of court and the finally using it in the court to overturn Sally Challen's conviction is why this is so remarkable a case.

And personally, I'm incredibly happy that Sally Challen is free now and she's at home. And I hope that she can put this behind her and move on. And like I said, I don't think in 2011 she should have, quote, got away with it. She served her time, and I think that's fair enough. And we'll leave you with David Challen's words on his mother. Because personally, I think he sums it up perfectly. He said, quote, We don't justify what our mother did, but the crime needs to be judged properly. She's not vengeful. She's not jealous.

She was psychologically manipulated. And that's what coercive control is. I think you're right. I think that is pretty spot on. I don't think we can say, I can't say it better than that, I don't think. No, thank you, David. You made our job a lot easier there.

Thank you as well for listening. That is the very, very recent news of Sally Challen's story. I'm glad that, literally, I was going to do this case anyway, but I was going to just basically say that we'll let you know when the retrial happens. But yeah, Friday it broke, but no retrial. Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist. Thank you very much for listening as ever. And if you would like to, you can follow us on all the social medias at Red handed the pod we are like 11 000 followers now

on instagram it's all very exciting just we're influencers now oh my god dyke fuck we are shit for those of you who don't follow us on instagram you absolutely should because the other day when we posted uh the image for the tomb episode uh which was obviously about not being not very nice about the catholic church um a christian clothing line commented on it and asked us to dm them because they wanted to give us a discount on their jesus clothes i think they may have understood my hashtag catholic hashtag nuns they're basically just like going through anyone who uses hashtag catholics and they're like let's message this person such top social media marketing going on if you want that comedy gold

it's such top social media marketing from both sides happening there that's what i love about the whole thing it's outstanding it's outstanding i don't feel like we really have any other sort of announcements to make the only other announcement that we wanted to make was fucking you guys harassed us on social media to the point that fine also related to the tomb episode you are gonna get some spooky bitch merch are you happy yeah you are of course and then in where are we this one's going out on thursday and then we've got that one tuesday on tuesday yeah so maybe in two weeks there'll be a big announcement maybe but i'm bad at weeks, so it might be three weeks. Also, is next Tuesday the day that the bonus episode is going out?

Yes, yes, yes, it is. It is next Tuesday. Do you guys remember when we asked you all to vote for us for the British Podcast Awards and you did it? And then we said if we got into the top ten, we'd give you a bonus episode. Well, you did it. And next Tuesday, you are getting a bonus episode. It's going to be great. It's great.

We already recorded it. It's in the can. We know It's great. We already recorded it. It's in the can. We know it's great. We just did it. I've lost all sense of time. I also love how we've just been like, we don't have any announcements and then did like seven in a row. We're just saying things now.

Yeah, just talking for the sake of talking. People love this bit. It gets to you just talking into a box for a couple of hours. I know. I feel a bit. I feel like I've gone mad and I also still haven't figured out how to lower my mic yet or how to like purchase a stool from ikea.com so I'm standing are you standing I'm standing oh you dick I'm standing in a box you absolute dip oh my god i haven't had the time someone buy me a stool for my gear you're too much right if you would like to show support the show with your cold hard cash you can do that at patreon.com forward slash red handed you get loads of stuff and extra

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it's great what do you mean no it is it's fucking great it's amazing i'm gonna buy the fanciest stool in the world my back actually really hurts i might actually start like a dud instagram page that stalls for cerrutis i think that's really funny this is how cocky you now are on instagram that you think you could just start fucking well i don't know if you've heard but we've got 11 000 followers oh my god okay i can't literally can't stand for any longer okay just got my telegram from the queen this morning lisa eric jesse bowley bowley yeah patrice crockett's hick uh jennifer collins meredith konopinski colin chepeka katie douglas shannon gerber danielle eisenbacher jenny jenny yeah what

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No. Probably. No, that was another one. That was Kristen or Kirstie or something. There's another one that was kristin or kirsty or something there's another one maybe they're sisters tracy carton ash luke green caitlin mccauley jessica priest josh murray katrina goodall jess freeman amore ficari uh michelle amy h dergis mimi morris colin chepeca amy mcintosh louise amy cassiton uh lauren bianco i feel like I've said these names already. Heather Turner, Karina, Caitlin Hawkins, James W, Emily Reed, JS, Annie White, AR, Stephanie Brown, and Valerie S. Johnson.

Hooray! Hooray for all of us. So, yeah. hooray hooray for all of us so yeah um please visit stallsforcerutis.com forward slash soranti goes to sleep did we post that nice little in joke for you there that we've never said to anyone except ourselves so you're welcome good yeah i don't know if anyone remembers the story i posted when we were in cuba of hannah just crying with laughter over the laptop. You know what? The day that this comes out, I'm just going to post it not in the story, just into the main Instagram feed. I've made the grid. You're on the grid. It is maybe my

favorite video of all time. And essentially, just listen to this description and then go immediately follow us on Instagram and watch this video. It's us in Cuba. We've just landed after a fucking long ass flight. We get off. We're absolutely knackered. Hannah's like, woo, Wi-Fi. Opens a laptop up, logs into Facebook and then the first post is somebody, bless them, talking about us. Hilariously mispronounces, misspells my name. Puts an N n in there there's no n in any part of my name and it basically had I was like how does that even sound and I was like it spells soranti and now Hannah's favorite thing is to call me soranti and watching that video makes it all okay because it is hilarious and Hannah's new goal in life is to um get a micro

pig and call it soranti so yeah with that go enjoy the video and enjoy your day goodbye bye see you next week oh my god 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.

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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.

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