"I Lived in Fear of My Jealous Lodger’s Hammer Attack After Love Triangle Chaos... Now I'm Terrified He'll Strike Again"

THE searing pain hit instantly. One second Sarah Tragner was asleep in her own bed – the next, she was screaming as boiling sugar water melted into her skin.

Minutes later, her crazed lodger Christopher Gilham smashed her in the back of the head with a hammer.

Sarah Tragner’s lodger subjected her to a vile attack within weeks of moving in Credit: Supplied Christopher Gillham blamed being ‘in love’ with Sarah for his vile attack Credit: Supplied

Sarah had taken pity on drifter Gilham after he claimed he had “nowhere to live” – only for him to unleash a savage attack.

The 49-year-old considers herself lucky to be alive after telling us: “I feared he wanted to that night”.

What began as an act of kindness quickly spiralled into a nightmare of manipulation, creepy sexual advances and violence.

When Sarah first started messaging Gillham on a meet-up group in July last year, she was hoping to find new friends and rebuild her life after her partner left her and her mother died.

“He was like, ‘I’m on my a*se with nowhere to live’,” the mum of Whitstable, , recalls. “I felt bad for him, everyone has been in a bad situation.

“He seemed nice so I told him he could stay for a week in my spare room. There was nothing romantic at all, I was just trying to help him out.”

But within days of moving into her Whitstable home, Gillham’s behaviour had started to change. He flirted relentlessly with the vulnerable mum-of- one, told Sarah she was “good looking” and even drunkenly messaged asking for a threesome with him and a pal.

She later discovered he had stolen money and watches from her, worth a total of £2,500.

At first Gillham was friendly, often asking if she wanted to watch TV with him, but soon his language changed with him telling her “you’re quite good looking” and trying to seduce her.

Sarah was initially flattered but turned him down. Over time his behaviour became increasingly creepy and he “started to embed himself” more and more in her home.

“In hindsight, I was vulnerable and probably a bit stupid,” she says. “Early on, he seemed nice but it soon felt like when people are in a cult and they are trying to groom you.

“I remember him sending the message asking if I wanted a threesome with him and his mate. I said no. I was disgusted and deleted the message soon after.

‘Psycho’ Christopher Gillham seconds after hitting Sarah with a hammer Credit: Supplied Gillham, pictured after returning to the scene, also attacked a female police officer Credit: Supplied

“I’m not silly and I’m not a sl*t. I was vulnerable and it was shocking to read. I thought of him as a friend, who I was helping out, and he was taking the p***.”

Sarah had been lending him money so that he could buy food but she didn’t realise he was also stealing her jewellery and cash until after the attack.

She would also discover later that he had registered to vote and a vehicle with the DVLA at her address – proving he had no intention of leaving in a hurry.

By this point, Sarah had started a romance with Gillham’s friend Tom, not his real name, and the pair had spent a few evenings together including on the night of the attack.

Two days before Gillham struck, she asked him to leave her home following her sister pointing out he was “really odd and very manipulative”, which she suspects could have been his motivation.

Recalling the night of the attack, Sarah says: “Chris was out until 2am and was off his t**s. He’d forgotten his keys, so I let him in and went straight back to bed.

“Soon after it all kicked off. I remember this searing pain after he chucked hot sugary water from the kettle over me twice, threw the kettle and called me a c**t.”

This type of scolding is known as ‘kettling’ in prisons and is often carried out because the sticky paste causes deeper, more severe damage.

Sarah suffered burns to her legs and has battled with her mental health Credit: Supplied While Sarah was treated, she saw on her Ring Doorbell that Gillham had returned Credit: Supplied

Sarah continues: “I ran to get my handbag and he followed me. Next thing I felt the hammer hit the back of my head and ran out the house. Tom had already run away.

“Chris followed me, I think he thought I was going to fall down. I believe he definitely wanted to kill me that night.

“I was lucky. I managed to dodge him while we were outside. I ran back into the house and locked the door. Chris fled the scene.”

Dazed from the hammer blow and in pain from the burns, Sarah thought “what the hell happened” barely able to comprehend the attack she suffered.

Gillham was jailed for 10 years for two attacks in January Credit: Kent Police Vulnerable mum Sarah is piecing her life back together after the attack in July Credit: Supplied

She called 999 but it wasn’t until seeing the “amount of blood all over the wall” and that her T-shirt was soaked in blood that she realised how badly hurt she was.

Sarah was treated in hospital for the burns on her leg and doctors “glued my head back together” after checking for further injuries with a CT scan.

But while in A&E, she felt her phone buzz. It was her Ring Doorbell and when Sarah opened the app, she saw Gillham standing at her front door.

“I could see him on the video,” Sarah says. “He was speaking to the police officer there and then I heard her screaming. He had punched her and ran off. She was bleeding from the head.”

The officer, who had to be treated in hospital, is understood to have left the force following the attack. Soon after Gillham was arrested.

Before the case went to Woolwich Crown Court, Sarah received a letter from Gillham in which he professed his love.

In it, he referred to her as “my angel” and claimed “I really love you Sarah” and “fell so hard for you so quickly”.

He blamed the attack on addiction issues, claiming to have “drank so much and took so many drugs I hardly remember” as well as mentioning the love triangle with Tom.

Gillham wrote: “When I saw you two together it made me hurt / jealous, I never meant for any of this to happen.”

Before signing off, he bizarrely begged her to “please don’t throw my stuff away” and offered her the option of speaking to and sending pictures to him in .

Sarah dismissed his letter, believing it was an attempt to reduce his sentence and manipulate her.

In January, Gillham was jailed for 10 years for a number of charges including grievous bodily harm with intent, assault causing actual bodily harm, two counts of criminal damage and escaping lawful custody.

But the jail term doesn’t feel like justice to Sarah, who fears once he’s released he will attack someone else.

She says: “A 10 year sentence is b*****ks. He won’t serve that amount of time. I fear he will be out in three years and put on a tag.

“I don’t believe he is remorseful at all. He’s dangerous and not in the right mind.

“I didn’t deserve any of what happened to me and I’m still battling to come to terms with it to this day.

“There’s no justification for what he did, other than him being a nutter. He could have killed me.

“He claimed in a letter that he was in love with me, that he was jealous and that he shouldn’t have done what he did. I didn’t believe a word of it. It was all b*****ks.

“Just because I slept with someone doesn’t mean I didn’t deserve to suffer horrific burns or subsequently get hit in the head with a hammer.

“I’ve been told before the attack that he used to laugh at me behind my back calling me a mug. He wanted to f*** me over.

“He’s a dangerous person. I worry that when he comes out, which could be in a few years, that he is capable of killing someone. I fear I’m on his hit list and I sleep with a bat.”