Martine McCutcheon is, hands down, one of our favourite actresses.
And if Tiffany Mitchell hadn’t exited EastEnders in such a definite way – getting killed after Frank Butcher ran her down – we’d be campaigning for her to make a return to tirelessly.
Or, you know, for a Love Actually 2.
And now, after her brave appearance on Loose Women, we love her even more.
The mum-of-one bravely discussed the domestic violence she experienced from her father when she was growing up - and encouraged women and children to speak up when they find themselves trapped in abusive relationships.
She told hosts: “My mum had been abused as a child and she met my dad and he’d been abused as well and they were kind of like these two sort of broken, damaged souls…My mum kind of mistook his obsession for love.”
Speaking of how drugs and alcohol abuse played a part in her upbringing, the actress-turned-singer told how her father wouldn’t remember the abuse he’d directed at his wife and child.
“Once I was started to be affected by it, physically by my dad and being used as a weapon against my mum, that was it, my mum kind of just sort of saw clearly all of a sudden.”
“He threatened my mum... He threatened to drop me over a balcony of our flat if she didn’t do what he wanted her to do when he was high as a kite one day.”
Seeing her young daughter subjected to the same abuse as she herself had experienced, Martine’s mother realised, like all sufferers of domestic violence, they did not bring this abuse on themselves – and they do not deserves it.
Martine told how her mother said of her: “She said, ‘you made me see the wood from the trees’” explaining they them moved around the country to try and escape him, needing panic buttons wherever they went.
“Finally when I was nine years old, I went to the Old Bailey and I spoke to the judge about what happened to me, what happened to my mum and an injunction was put against him and he wasn’t allowed obviously within a certain radius of me and my mum until I was 18.”
Well done to Martine and her mother’s for overcoming such a traumatic experience.
If you believe that you are a victim of emotional, mental, physical, and / or sexual abuse, then please call the Freephone 24 Hour National Domestic Violence Helpline (run in partnership between Women’s Aid and Refuge) on 0808 2000 247 to talk through your options or to find a space in a refuge.*
ALSO READ
Coercive Control: The law, definition, warning signs and ways to seek help