A MAN who fought to free his mum from jail after she murdered his dad has spoken out about how he forgave her for the brutal killing.
David Challen, 38, from in 2019, nine years after she killed his dad Richard – her husband – by bludgeoning him with a hammer.
Despite Sally having suffered decades of coercive control by her husband, David says Richard was “not a monster”;, adding that he was “deeply complex”;.
In August 2010, , a 56-year-old housewife, brutally murdered Richard, her 61-year-old husband of 31 years, at their home in Claygate, .
Sally was eventually convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, before her and she was .
Now, ahead of the release of a new book David has written on his family’s ordeal, the 38-year-old has recalled his battle to free his mum.
Speaking to The Sunday Times, David said reading about the by her husband and dozens of other men gave him flashbacks to the own suffering his mum experienced.
He explained: “It highlighted the normality of these men in our society. My dad was not a monster. He was deeply complex.
“If society labels them monsters, it’s washing its hands of how they are created.”;
Opening up on how the killing unfolded, David explained that the murder was not a “moment of madness”; but a result of “systemic erosion”; of his mum’s sense of self.
He said Sally’s freedom was slowly taken away from her, bit by bit, worsened by a toxic atmosphere at his childhood home.
David recalls his dad’s “flashes of anger”; and belittling comments made towards his mum – with Richard even manipulating his son to try and isolate Sally further.
Eventually the suffering became so great that Sally lashed out, bludgeoning Richard to death with a hammer.
After Sally was jailed, David began to unearth chilling details about how his dad had subjected Sally to decades of – keeping it hidden from him and his brother James.
They discovered how their mum had been dragged down stairs, been raped by Richard on a family holiday to , and had attempted suicide at age 21.
There were also instances of Richard throwing a plate of mince she had prepared on the floor, keeping her away from her friends until she had none left and even disabling her car by messing with its engine — just to punish her.
Sally had also found proof that Richard had gone to brothels and was seeing other women.
In his new book, David writes how his mum didn’t fight back – after Richard repeatedly raped her as a punishment for discovering his behaviour – adding that Sally thought her lack of actions would “make him love her.”;
Sally had been subject to coercive control – a pattern of abuse where someone is made to feel dependent, isolated, or scared.
She was even forced to hand over her salary throughout her painful ordeal.
These discoveries prompted David to begin years of ardent campaigning, eventually leading to an appeal which reduced her conviction to manslaughter.
Helped by a law passed in 2015 which recognised psychological manipulation as a form of domestic abuse, Sally walked free from HMP Send, Surrey, in 2019.
The landmark case saw Sally’s murder conviction quashed due to new psychiatric evidence, with her final sentencing acknowledging the impact that years of controlling abuse had on her.
As a result, roughly three thousands murder convictions are being reassessed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission to factor in examples of coercive control – with at least five cases having been reopened.
In his new book, The Unthinkable: A Story of Control, Violence and My Mother, due to be released on Thursday, David showcases his struggle to come to terms with his father’s abuse, and how it’s affecting his life even now.
David also highlights how more needs to be done to protect victims of coercive control.
Speaking on the BBC show Sunday with about how his dad’s abuse had become “normalised”; in their family home, David explained how he “couldn’t understand”; at first how his mum had murdered Richard.
He said: “She’d done the worst act anyone possibly could do. [She] took away my father.”;
Following the change in the law regarding coercive control, David, now a domestic abuse campaigner, said he finally had a way to describe the “insidious nature”; of his dad.
David added that not having a name for the abuse had “robbed us of our right to have an ability to protect ourselves.”;
He explained that he had to dig up his past in order to “find the child”; he had left behind.
David continued: “But I knew I was born into this world with a gut feeling that [there was] something inherently bad about my father, and I never knew why.
“I normalised the coercion and control in my home, this life of servitude that my mother lived under... sexual violence was routine.”;
