This picture was taken a week after Natalie Allman was beaten by her controlling ex.
Over a period of seven hours she had her neck slashed, she was suffocated with a pillow and smashed around the head with a dumbbell.
Jealous former TA soldier Jason Hughes flipped when he found out that she was seeing someone else and so launched his attack.
But now, even though he’s been behind bars for three years, she has been told she has to write to him three times a year.
She told the Sunday People: ‘We are the victims, not him. I thought he was going to kill me that night for no reason and my boys saw that. They were terrified.
‘I’m so angry that the law still defends his parental rights and that he is still being allowed to control us from behind bars.’
Natalie was told that if she doesn’t write to Hughes, she faces a possible jail sentence for contempt.
Hughes grew violent three years into their relationship after turning to alcohol, sometimes drinking a litre of vodka a day or six litres of cider.
She told him she was seeing someone else and on February 3, 2011, while she wasy lying in bed, he smashed her around the head with a dum bell, tried to smother her with a pillow, and left a scar around her neck with a knife.
Seven hours into the attack, he eventually let her call an ambulance and Hughes was arrested.
She added: ‘I couldn’t believe it. I could end up being split up from my children and sent to prison when he was the one who attacked me. I’m the one being treated like a criminal.’
