ITV Wales presenter Ruth Dodsworth's former husband has been refused early home release, but she is still preparing for him getting out of prison later this year. Jonathan Wignall was jailed last year for coercive behaviour, and his shadow still hangs heavy, but Ruth is determined to look for the positives, is learning to live her life again and has a burning desire to use her case to help others.
Ahead of the airing of a new documentary being shown on Thursday night about coercive control and her experience in an abusive marriage, Ruth spoke out about his release later this year.
Speaking about her fears she said: "I still wrestle with the whole idea that this man I spent a long time with, 20 years of my life, is in prison. I never set out for that to happen. And in fairness to the police, they've pointed out that I haven't put him there. He's put himself in there with his behaviour."
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"My fear is that when he was initially sentenced, the judge told him 'You're a danger to your to your ex-wife and children and you are evil'. How much will a year behind bars have changed this man who has lived his whole life showing these patterns of behaviour? I'd like to think that things have changed, but he'd never shown any remorse."
"And so my worry is that he will come out a far more dangerous person than he was when he went in and I'm really scared about him coming out But I want to tell anyone in a similar situation, you can have a happy life after."
After Wignall was sent to prison, Ruth spoke to WalesOnline in an emotional and open interview about the impact his campaign of abuse had on her life and how she was now determined to help others. She has since repeatedly spoken out about her experience in her bid to help others who are going through the same thing, including the moment her children told her not to come home because Wignall was threatening to kill her.
Ruth, who has since remarried, is determined that her story will help others and has taken part in a new television programme, Controlled By My Partner? The Hidden Abuse. She spoke here about finding new love and re-learning what normal life is like. The programme will show previously unseen police footage of the moment he was arrested after making more than 200 phone calls to his wife, and includes input from her daughter Grace.
Ruth says: "Even now, hearing it just gives me the chills. I've made rather a concerted effort not to look at any pictures, photographs, but there's something about hearing that, hearing the anger in his voice. He was saying it was not harassment, 'she's my wife'. And that was very much the sort of the theme of his behaviour in a sense.
"She's my wife, she's my possession. And as a result, I'm allowed to do what I want. And I think that that was a pattern of behaviour that developed over the 20 or so years that we were together. And by the end of it, I felt like a possession. I felt I wasn't my own person. It was dehumanising. It was humiliating. It just took away every sort of sense of myself. And so to hear that, that was the morning really when everything changed. He was arrested then. And that was the last time I saw or heard from him."
Ruth's 18-year-old daughter, Grace, appears in the programme and says: “This was our reality, this was our lives, it was normal for us. And then all of a sudden we’re having all these professionals telling us that’s not right, and everything we’ve known is pretty much gone.”
Ruth also shared a text which her ex-partner sent in an attempt to manipulate her children. The tweet shows an image of Ruth in hospital and the text: "This is what it looks like when you don't want your children anymore".
Ruth wrote: "Three years ago I was taken into hospital. He photographed everything. I never knew why. After he was arrested months later this is the message he sent my children. He couldn’t manipulate me anymore. So he tried to manipulate them."
Nightclub owner Jonathan Wignall was sentenced to three years in prison last April after he pleaded guilty to stalking and coercive control. He had subjected Ruth to a nine-year campaign of abuse.
On the show, Ruth discusses how it took her years to recognise she was being abused and how her children’s fears for her safety made her realise Wignall’s behaviour was not normal. She said: “I had no idea that the threats and manipulation my ex-husband used for almost a decade were actually a pattern of criminal behaviour.
“He would call me dozens of times a day, wanting to know where I was and who I was with. He would check my phone and even delete contacts from it. He would turn up at my workplace or insist that I leave the studio to eat lunch with him in his car.”
Ruth added: “It wasn’t until my own children began to fear for my safety that I realised what was going on wasn’t normal. In October 2019, I finally called the police and my then-husband was arrested. My ex-husband was jailed for just three years and nine months, but could be released later this year after serving less than half of his sentence – I can’t pretend I’m not scared, but I am trying to stay positive.”
Controlled By My Partner? The Hidden Abuse airs at 8.30pm on Thursday 5 May on ITV and on catch-up on the ITV Hub.
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