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Gillian Wearing

My secret is that I killed my husband. It happened seven years ago. I met him when I was 19 and we married very quickly. The day after we got married, we went out and he hit me for the first time. We then went on to have two children. He never hit my children, but he used to hit me on a regular basis. I used to get him arrested, and I would normally drop all the charges. This evening, that the accident happened, there was no fresh bed linen, so I went to get it and, he got really angry for some reason, he just flipped, but it wasn’t very unusual for him to just flip for no reason, and he started strangling me, and because I had a toddler, I had taken the knives out of the kitchen drawer and left them up on top of the microwave so my little boy couldn’t reach them, and while I was being strangled, I just reached out with my hand and there was a knife, in front of me. I swung the knife around and stabbed him, once. It went through his spleen and his stomach and he later died in hospital. I was arrested on the spot and my children were taken away from me. It then went on for 18 months, moving from different bail hostels to different bail hostels. I was in prison very briefly. That was scary. The worst thing was being separated from my children. Eighteen months after the incident, we finally went to court, in the Old Bailey, for two weeks, and I was then acquitted of both murder and manslaughter. I was free straight away but social services wouldn’t return my children to me, although I have no previous history of any violence or ever been arrested before in my life, social services still would not return my children to me. It took me about six months before I got my kids back. My children are aware of what happened, but their knowledge is age appropriate, they don’t know everything. I did get really upset when my children were taken away. Obviously, as well, they had lost their dad, 80 and their mum at the same time. I was very angry with my husband for a long time, for leaving us, and for putting us in a predicament. I wish it didn’t happen, but it wasn’t anything that I could control. Obviously I don’t tell people that I know, either at work or at the school, I wouldn’t want people to pre-judge me. It’s a very hard thing to say: ‘Oh, I killed my husband.’ I just say he died in an accident. I don’t actually lie, but I don’t give the whole truth, which isn’t a lie to say he died in an accident –it was a terrible tragic accident. But he’d beat me five or six years, and also he raped me, and he was arrested for that, and the police actually told me that there wasn’t much point in going through with the charges because it’s very rare that a husband will be charged, or will even go to court. I was told that by the Vulnerable Persons Unit, when I was vulnerable person, but they obviously didin’t seem to think it was so serious. I think with domestic violence, the secrets is the most thing. I suppose I learnt to keep a secret then, and I still have to keep this secret. I don’t know how long it will bother me, I suppose until my children are older. We still kind of live in fear from this family. I was threatened at the court, and the police offered me no protection, so we’ve had to move. We’ve moved about ten times since it happened. This happened six years ago. We’re settled now, I hope. But, my secret will stay a secret to protect my children. El meu secret és que vaig matar el meu marit. Va passar fa set anys. El vaig conéixer quan jo tenia 19 anys i ens casàrem de seguida. El dia després de casar-nos, eixim, i em va pegar per primera vegada. Després vam tindre dos fills. Mai va pegar als meus fills, però a mi em pegava regularment. Jo feia que el detingueren, i normalment retirava els càrrecs. Eixa nit, quan va succeir l’incident, no hi havia llençols nets, així que vaig anar a per aquestes i per alguna raó ell es va enfadar molt, se li va anar el cap, però no era molt estrany que a ell se li anara el cap sense raons, i va començar a estrangular-me, i com jo tenia un bebé, havia tret els ganivets del calaix de la cuina i els havia deixat damunt del microones perquè el meu fill no els poguera agafar, i mentre m’estrangulava, vaig estirar el braç i allí hi havia un ganivet, davant de mi. Vaig girar el ganivet i el vaig apunyalar, una


Gillian Wearing
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