She was loving life. It was 1987 and she had been dazzled by the early 80s New Romantics movement and still embraced it by wearing "frilly white shirts" and clubbing hard in Manchester, sometimes until dawn.
She had a job, a boyfriend, and rented a mid-terraced house. "I was going to pubs and clubs, having fun. I was working. It was a good time. I was going to see bands, I was doing what all 27-year-olds do. It was exciting.
"We would come into Manchester, Friday night, and not go home until Sunday morning- there was all night cafes, we took a change of clothing and got changed at the bus station. We would go to the Ritz, Placemate 7. We'd even gone to a club and been turned away because someone was wearing trainers, so bought a pair of shoes off the next person - that's the sort of thing we were doing."
Her care-free life was to be shattered. "We had been to a party the night before. It was in the morning about, 7.30, 8am, I was asleep. I felt something sharp on my neck. He woke me up." As she says this her bottom lip quivers slightly.
"He broke a window at the back, the pantry window. I hadn't heard that. I had been told he had been watching me (in the days before). He broke in, I did not hear him coming up the stairs. I felt the sharpness to my neck, and woke up to these eyes. At first he said 'have you got any money'. There was some on the dressing table, so I said 'yes, over there, don't hit me'.
"Then he did what he did, with the knife at my throat, and he put a pillow over my face. It felt like he was in the house for hours. I just remember his eyes. He had a black scarf or a balaclava on, and the old fashioned light khaki green jacket. I stayed there for a few minutes. I didn't know what to do. What happened to me I see daily."
Now in her sixties, that day in 1987 has shaped her entire life. And the horror of what happened to her is currently amplified by something she dreaded, but will occur within weeks. Andrew Barlow, formerly Andrew Longmire, the man who raped her in her own bed, is to be released from prison.
She was not the only victim. Barlow was convicted of 13 rapes in total and given 13 life sentences. The Parole Board announced in December he was to be allowed out. The move was criticised by Deputy Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, who described Barlow's crimes as 'despicable'. He asked the Parole Board to reconsider. But a retired judge, a member of the Board, who looked at it again, agreed with the original decision.
Barlow, 66, was originally from Bolton, and later lived in Swinton. He has spent 34 years in jail and could be out as soon as next month. But for the victim, who spoke to the Manchester Evening News, her sentence is never ending.
She was attacked in her home in Greater Manchester, and was among those targeted in Barlow's second campaign of rape, which stretched from August 1987 to January 1988 when he was captured, but not before firing a sawn-off shotgun twice at two Merseyside police officers. His first attacks were from 1981 to 1984.
'I was told I must have been asking for it'
"I didn't go back to work. (After the rape). I kept it quiet because I didn't want people to know. Because we are talking the 1980s. Even today I am embarrassed. I couldn't do anything about it. If it had happened on a night out it and he had been blind drunk it would still have not been acceptable, but I was in my own bed - my safe place.
"But I still blame myself. Maybe I should have been more observant if someone was watching me. I was not in a good place after it happened and I have not been in good place for the last 30 odd years. In the early aftermath I was jumpy and on edge. In the end they had to be told at work and I remember this woman saying to me 'well it's always the victim's fault int'it..you must have been asking for it'. He broke into my house.
"Guilt was put on me, and I was not the guilty one. I did nothing wrong. It was shameful, it was the 80s and there was no support system like we have today. There was no counselling, no after help. It was a case of 'you'll be alright now' - well you're not.
"I couldn't sleep anymore, I couldn't sleep in my bed anymore. I didn't feel safe in the house. I had friends coming to pick me up off the street because I was terrified of going home. I would just sit on the wall outside because I felt safer outside than in my house - but I didn't feel safe outside either."
She moved out of the house where Barlow had struck. Several years later she married. "That's when I started sleeping back in a bed again. Before that I had been sleeping downstairs in a chair or on a sofa for years."
But the damage caused by Barlow was deep. "I couldn't be on my own in a room with a man, even a doctor. I trusted nobody." Her marriage did not last. "As much as he understood, there is only so much a person can take, you know, with rejection."
"It lasted a while. I had two children. I got married again, but that did not last either. That lasted even less. But when I was married I did manage to sleep in a bed again because I felt safe - somebody was there. But when the marriages ended I was back in the chair. Ten years sleeping downstairs.
"I did have life in between. Your life does not just stop. You have to carry on to some extent. You put a brave face on. People don't know. So you stick up for the underdog if someone is attacked. You do things covertly."
'I can't have anyone trying to give me a hug - even my kids'
She did not tell her children of the rape until they were much older. "They were not there when it happened, so it is not their burden. Unfortunately they have had to put up with my mood swings, but I don't think I have been a bad mother."
"I can't have anyone trying to give me a hug - even my kids." Her daughter adds: "I can't remember the last time I hugged my mum. It is normal to us now. She has physically pushed us away - not meaning to - it is hard to explain it."
On one occasion she had a "meltdown" when one of her children jumped out at her as a joke. Her daughter said: "One Halloween I thought it would be funny to dress up as a werewolf and hid in next door's garden. I surprised mum and she locked the doors of the house for an hour."
Barlow had applied eight times for parole before it was granted. One Christmas a letter arrived at the victim's home informing her that he was making a fresh bid for freedom.
The victim's daughter said: "I was about 16 and a letter came, which I at the time, didn't know what it was. But it was about him going for parole again. It was Christmas Eve, my mum had seen the letter. Usually she would cook things and get presents ready - but she couldn't. I ended up wrapping my brother's presents. She didn't sleep in her bed.
"She normally has the house ready for Christmas - we have a giant Santa Claus - she never put that up. We ended up trying to do the cooking because mum was crying - she just couldn't do it. Traditionally we would watch the Queen's speech - we had no television - no news - nothing. No playing with my brother's toys."
'There was no victim support in the 80s'
The victim said: "There was no victim support in the 80s. It only started for me ten years ago when I got a liaison officer, and they have been fantastic. I always know when he his coming up for parole - I get a letter, and they ring me. They have always reassured me that nothing is going to happen."
Barlow was given 11 life sentences in 1988 for raping 11 women and an additional 56 years for other offences. In 2010 and then again in 2017, he received two more life sentences after rapes he committed in 1981 and 1982 were linked to him through advances in DNA technology. As he had already surpassed his original 20-year tariff imposed in 1988 just another two years were added to his sentence in each case.
The victim learned in November - before it was officially announced - that the Parole Board had decided Barlow should be let out. "I was gobsmacked, as was my liaison officer - they could not believe it. I knew last year he was going to an open prison which I did object to. Eventually I thought there's nothing I can do about it, but at least he is still in prison."
'I am sure there will be others and believe he will do this again - he's a caged animal'
In a summary of their decision to release him the Parole Board revealed that Barlow was recalled from an open prison to a closed one, but do not explain why.
The victim said: "He has not been tested. During his time in open prison he only went outside twice, and escorted by a prison guard. What he did - each attack, he was getting progressively more aggressive. That is not a sign of someone who is going to reform. That is a sign of someone who is going to carry on and carry on, and possibly take someone's life. He shot at two police officers. So he has progressed from having a knife to having a gun. So, was the next victim going to be shot?"
She is also convinced that the 13 women who Barlow was convicted of raping are not his only victims. "I am sure there are others. I know he was in prison in 1985, so obviously it has gone quiet then. But there would be weeks between each attack."
Appealing to other Barlow victims who coped by remaining silent, she said: "Come forward, because we are now listened to. I know the torment they are going through - because I went through it. I have always been very quiet about it. But I feel now is the time to talk because he is coming out and he is dangerous. I firmly believe he is going to do this again, I don't care how old he is. He has waited all this time and you have caged an animal up."
She added: "You are releasing him to a different world. He hasn't got access to the internet - yet. When he does he can bring women to him. Whatever part of the country he goes women are in danger. I know he was strong - and in prison they get the chance to use the gym. He is not that old.
"There is something every day of my life that I think about regarding what he did to me. It is difficult (to cope). I can't watch the news, there are some films I can't watch because I know their are certain scenes in them. The book, Fifty Shades of Grey - I can't even look at it. Certain smells can kick it off. I associate khaki with weed - so if I smell weed it triggers my memory."
Her daughter said: "When the letters come (regarding Barlow's parole applications) it is like a dark cloud falls on everything. If we were planning to go out, it is probably going to be cancelled. It might be as simple as going shopping - that would be cancelled. My brother and I have to physically be at her home for workmen to go into her house, and not to leave mum alone at all. Workmen have to ring her the day before, an hour before, half an hour before they arrive and me or my brother answer the door.
"We had Jehovah's Witnesses come once. They can be very unexpected. I had to apologise to them because it was a gentleman. He was lovely but he arrived at the wrong period of time. My mum just blew like a volcano. I knew she was triggered. I have to apologise to a lot of people. Mum is not meaning it."
'Dominic Raab wants to give his head a wobble - this rapist is still taunting us'
The victim said: "I understand they have to empty the prisons - they can't afford to keep them (inmates) in. But if they let out people who have done minor crimes they would be able to afford to keep people like him inside."
Commenting on the decision by Deputy Prime Minister not to seek a judicial review of the Parole Board's decision to release Barlow, she said: "He needs to wobble his head. He needs to read the papers in the case. He needs to come and spend a week with me - he'll change his mind."
She believes that Barlow changed his name as a "two fingers up" to his victims. "This is his trophy. They named him the Coronation Street rapist. In the 1980s the Barlows in that programme were a big family - Ken, Deidre, so he chose Barlow, and he got arrested on Barlow Street."
She still hopes, at this late stage that the Parole Board and government will back track on the decision to release Barlow. "I am hoping that they do come to their senses. I don't want there to be anyone else out there who has gone through what we have. Yet there is part of me thinking, please God, come forward, because there has got to be somebody, which would stop this, even if it is enough to help us put an appeal in to the high court. People need to know that people like him devastate lives - not just the victim, but the family around them."
Banned from Greater Manchester
When Barlow is released he will be barred from Greater Manchester. But the victim has locks on every window and every door of her home, and CCTV.
In its summary of the decision to release Barlow the Parole Board says he will be subject to licence conditions., which must be strictly adhered to.
He will have to comply with requirements to reside at a designated address, to be of good behaviour, to disclose developing relationships, and to report as required for supervision or other appointments.
In addition, he must submit to an enhanced form of supervision or monitoring including drug testing, signing-in times, GPS trail monitoring, polygraph testing and a specified curfew.
Barlow would have to comply with other identified limitations concerning contacts, activities, residency and an exclusion zone to avoid contact with victims. He would also have to meet specified restrictions relating to the use of electronic technology and continue to work on addressing defined areas of risk in the community.
The Manchester Evening News can reveal that, so far, Barlow would be banned from all of Greater Manchester and most of North Wales. Maps of these exclusion zones were provided to a relative of one of his victims by the Probation Service.
In a letter to the son of another of Barlow's victims, sent this month, Damian Hinds, the Minister for Prisons and Probation, says: "I would like to offer you my deepest sympathy for the trauma caused by Longmire's crimes."
He adds: :"As you are aware, following a review of the release decision, the Secretary of State for Justice directed officials to apply to the Parole Board to have the decision reconsidered, by arguing that the release decision was irrational and had been made in connection with a material procedural error. The application was submitted on 17 January; however, on 2 February, a senior judicial member of the Parole Board refused the application and therefore, the release decision has now become final.
"I acknowledge that this news will be very disappointing to you and to other victims of Longmire, but please be assured that officials submitted the strongest possible case. Longmire will be subject to a stringent set of licence conditions, which include conditions requested by his victims, such as exclusion zones and a prohibition on Longmire ever contacting them. He will be required to reside in supervised accommodation and will also be subject to GPS monitoring to further ensure his compliance.
"I am sorry to have to send what I know may be a disappointing response for you, but I hope this helps set out the plans to manage Longmire safely in the community."
