POLICE have released the heartrending story of a different sort of “victim of crime” who could be from Warrington.
It is a genuine case study concerning the girlfriend of a persistent burglar in Cheshire although they cannot reveal exactly where in the county to maintain anonymity.
Names have also been changed to protect those involved.
HER rented flat is small, but fastidiously clean. The living room contains a modest sized television and two brown leather armchairs – but little else. There are a couple of framed photographs on the wall, but none of the little luxuries you would expect to see in a person’s home, especially someone who appears to be single with a good job. The door to the flat is new, because the old one was kicked in recently. Nicola is a victim of crime – and has been, over and over again, for the last 11 years. But not in the way you might expect.
In 1998 Nicola met Alex, and as she says, it was love at first sight. It must have been, because from that moment on her life changed completely. On their first date Alex took her to a car she assumed to be his, but it wasn’t. The car 
was stolen, and when the police found it, not only was it covered in his fingerprints, but hers were on it as well. The terrified girl, who had never done anything wrong in her life, found herself hauled into a police station and cautioned. And this set the tone for the next decade.
“A couple of weeks after we met he was sent to a Young Offender’s Institute, and I wasn’t even aware of this until a letter arrived from him,” says Nicola. “I had never experienced anything like this before – my background was completely different to his. In the letters he sent he persuaded me that this was simply a ‘one off’ and that it was worth waiting for him to come out.”
But it wasn’t a “one off”, as Nicola soon found. “This has been the pattern for the last 11 years,” she adds. “Since I have known him, he has actually been in prison more than he has been out. During that time he has been in prisons for seven years, sometimes just for a couple of months at a time, but the longest was 18 months.”
Alex is what the police call a “persistent offender”. He has committed so much crime that from the moment he sets foot outside the gates of the prison, he is kept a close eye on. The crimes he has been convicted of are usually petty – thefts from cars or sheds – but there has been the occasional burglary. And the first Nicola ever knows of what he has been up to is when the police arrest him again. In all the time he has known her, Alex has never once admitted to what he has been charged with. He always maintains that it is a “fit up”. But Nicola knows better. When he is out of prison, she spends her time at work wondering what he might be up to, and when they are at home together she is just waiting for the police to arrive at her door again.
Despite her blameless life, Nicola has spent more time than most in police cells. “Because Alex used to live with me, police would find stolen goods he had hidden in the flat and I would be arrested when he was. I was once left in a cell for eight hours and that was a terrible shock.
“The first time they arrested us both I cried while I was in the cell, but you sort of harden up to it.”
The same is true, apparently, of the early morning wake-up calls from the police. When I suggest that being woken at 6am by the sound of your door being battered in must be terrifying, I am told no. “You sort of go into a state of shock as it happens,” says Nicola. “You just switch off. You are living on the edge the whole time, just waiting for it to happen again, but at the same time you begin to normalise it in your head.
“It is very upsetting because every time they come they go through the laundry basket and my underwear, and recently they have started taking away my jewellery until they can verify that it is mine and not stolen. They go through my flat looking for anything that is worth money, then I have to go through the procedure of proving that it is mine – I have even started keeping the receipts for stuff so I can prove I have paid for it.
“Some of the officers speak to me as if I am a criminal as well, but occasionally they can be sympathetic.”
Nicola is small and pretty, aged in her late 20s or early 30s, and immaculately dressed. Her eyes are big and dark, and slightly sad. Everything she tells you about her life suggests that she is frail and put upon, but as you talk you realise there is steel behind her words. She is as much of a victim of her partner’s crimes as those he steals from, but she is convinced – perhaps wrongly – that she can do something to stop the constant nightmare her life has become. She is certainly not what you might think the partner of a “career criminal” would be – the woman you see in the television dramas screaming at the police that her beloved is innocent as they drag him away, then living in finery on the proceeds of his crimes while waiting for him to return from prison.
Throughout their relationship Nicola has held full time jobs, and managed, despite the pressures caused by Alex’s lifestyle, to put herself through college and work her way up the career ladder.
But it hasn’t been easy. “I had always thought that I could do bigger and better things, but the fact that I had this partner always stopped me and held me back – there has always been the sneaking fear that as I went further with my career, I would have to divulge more about my private life and it could ruin my chances.”
Even now, having managed to achieve a job she loves and is good at, the worries remain. “They have recently started conducting Criminal Records checks, which is something they have never done before. I have never done anything wrong but I worry that the caution I got on our first date could come up.”
Despite the sheer amount of items Alex must have stolen over the past decade, Nicola has never seen a penny from him – either directly or indirectly. And there’s a simple reason for this. He is stealing to fund his drug habit.
It is the drug habit that fuels the crime, in a never ending circle. “I have found drugs paraphernalia in the flat before, so I know he is doing it, but he always tells me he can control it. I know that he has moved from cannabis and cocaine to crack cocaine and heroin. I hate seeing him when he is on the drugs – although he never does it in front of me I can see the deterioration in the way he looks. He is fit and healthy when he comes out of prison, and he is lovely to me – my friends call it our ‘honeymoon period’. But then he’ll meet one of his associates and take drugs, and then the cycle will begin again. He stops looking after himself properly and his skin starts to go – but he can never see it, he thinks he looks fine. He starts asking me for money, and when I won’t give it to him he says ‘it’s only £20’ and I’ll start to feel guilty, because it is only £20.”
Alex is in prison at the moment, and is waiting to hear if he is to be charged with further burglaries, which once again he denies being involved with.
Nicola said: “He tells me it wasn’t him and he is confident he will be out of prison soon. He tries to get me into the mind set that it is ‘them and us’, but I tell him no, they are only doing their job and if they have got evidence they need to follow it up.
“Sometimes it is like I am having a break when he’s inside. When he’s out I feel like I have got the weight of the world on my shoulders – I’ve got one foot in my own personal world and the other in the world of a drug addict and criminal. When he is put in prison it is like a weight being lifted from my shoulders – I can get a peaceful night’s sleep without worr
ying about what he might be doing and that the police might call.
“People always say that I am a different person when he is in prison – they can see what it does to me. It’s like a routine because when he is in prison I know where he is – I know he’s warm and well fed and he can phone and write to me.
“When I started going out with him I visited him once a week when he was in prison – in a way it was quite exciting, a world I had never known before. But the novelty does wear off and I don’t go and see him that much any more.”
Unsurprisingly, Nicola has had counselling, and even less surprising, her counsellor has suggested that all her problems stem from the relationship with Alex. “But I always tell him that I have put 11 years of my life into this relationship, and I just can’t let nothing come out of it. I am still hopeful that one day he will stop.”
In the years she has been seeing Alex, her parents, who she is still very close to, have never met him. Her mother saw her own sister go through a similar destructive relationship, and warned Nicola from the off that she could see history repeating itself. “None of my relatives can understand why a ‘sensible girl like me’ has done this.
“I do feel that I have let my parents down,” Nicola adds, her voice breaking slightly as she says it.
“My hope would be for him to come off drugs before he stops the crime, because I think one would follow the other. I just want him to settle down – he has got the stability here, I have shown him nothing but loyalty. He is now nearly 31 and I want him to turn his back on this lifestyle. It is like he has never had to grow up – he has spent his 20s doing exactly what he likes and he has never had a job.”
The idea that Alex creates victims with his crimes upsets her. “I do think it is awful what his victims are going through. I don’t agree with his attitude – that these people are insured, that they get compensation and that they can afford it. But I also think that his mind is different when he is on the drugs, and that is how he justifies it.
“Sometimes when he is ravaged by the drugs I actually feel quite ashamed by him and don’t want to be seen out with him.
“Even at the worst times I know there is a nice person deep down – I wouldn’t stay with a nasty character, I wouldn’t. I just keep hoping that one day he will wake up and realise what he is doing and what effect it has.
“And I do think that I am another victim of his crimes. My dad always says that I must like my life deep down, but it’s not that – I love Alex and I’m just living my life day to day. I have said many times that Alex is my addiction. I don’t drink or take drugs.
“The police say I am perpetuating things by standing by him, giving him money and a roof over his head, that I am fuelling his drug habit and not helping him. But I don’t actually think he is able to cope with and function in the outside world any more. He is institutionalised and still needs the prison routine when he comes out. He just can’t manage with day to day life.
“Every time he comes out of prison he treats it like a holiday, I try to tell him that he shouldn’t be buying new clothes and celebrating because he shouldn’t have been in there in the first place. He always says that this time he is going to sort out his benefits, go to the gym and start looking for a job, but he never does. In all the time I have known him he has never even got round to claiming any money from the state. Sometimes I do feel more like his mother than his partner. I go to work and wash his clothes and feed him, and he just does what he wants.
“I don’t think that crime pays at all. I’m not living it up, I don’t go on holidays or own a car. All I see is the prison and the physical and emotional effects that drugs have. I am terrified that Alex will either end up in prison for a long time or end up dead – from the drugs or through a revenge attack. There is nothing glamorous or exciting about living with a criminal.
“I know I have been foolish. I am sure if I were a stronger person and had had more life experiences before I met him I wouldn’t let a man treat me like this.”
Recently Alex has not been living at Nicola’s house, but has been staying at hostels when he comes out of prison. But she is undecided whether to take him back when he comes out this time.
“I really don’t know what to do because if I allow him to come here again there will be a really high chance my door will be put through again by the police. When it happens I have to pay for it, the last time it cost me more than £300. But if he goes to a hostel I don’t know what he is doing and who he is associating with.”
And when asked what her future may hold, you can see the confusion in her eyes. “Sometimes I find myself hoping that I can find the strength to leave him – put the whole thing to bed and say I have done everything I possibly can and walk away. My friends say that otherwise in five years I will be in the same situation.
“I have always wanted to have children but because Alex is in and out of prison I didn’t want to bring them up without a father or give up my job. But I still desperately do want to start a family. Sometimes I wonder that if I did get pregnant and we had a family it would be the catalyst needed to change him.
“People ask me what do I want, and I just want a happy solid family life with a child and things like holidays and a car. I say this to him and he tells me he loves me and he will change, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
Pictured: A burglar strikes…but sometimes the people he steals from are not the only victims.
