My man choked me, yanked my hair out & broke my ribs when I joked about his small penis – he had been the ‘perfect' guy

The Sun

5 days ago

HEARING your partner say they want to settle down is music to the ears of most women.
But for Jessica Donald it was the first in a series of red flags in her relationship with "perfect guy", Kevin Evans.
While he might have seemed like a gentleman, Evans was jealous and paranoid, flying into a rage at a moment's notice and launching violent attacks on Jessica.
He punched and choked Jessica and put her in hospital twice threatening to kill her if she tried to leave.
'I was so terrified I believed him,' Jessica told us.
Having met on a dating app, the couple were enjoying a stroll through the local park on their first date when Evans confessed his future plans.
Violent attacks
'It wasn't really what I was looking for,' Jessica confesses.
'After a recent breakdown, I'd been diagnosed with bipolar. I'd finally got my meds right and just wanted to ease back into dating.'
Jessica, 44, who was nine years Evans' senior, described him as "nice-looking" and "charming".
'When he confided his parents had been abusive my heart broke for him,' she recalls.
Within a few weeks of their first date in August 2017, things were quickly progressing for the couple.
My perfect husband was hiding a twisted truth that led to a bloodbath – police found me in 'worst crime scene' ever
Jessica, who lives in Canada, explains: 'He told me that he loved me. For a long while I'd felt bad about myself, now this wonderful man had swept me off my feet. I began to feel I loved and needed him too.'
One night after the couple had been dating for just over a month, they visited a pub one evening for a few drinks.
'Swept off my feet'
While they were there Jessica struck up conversation with a few strangers.
'I'm the sort of person who talks to everyone and innocently spoke to a man on the table next to us,' she says.
'But back at home Kevin was raging and accused me of trying to sleep with him. I told him that I was just making conversation and that he was crazy.
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'Suddenly, his eyes darkened and he grabbed my throat with both hands and squeezed. I couldn't believe it was happening, at that moment I thought I was going to die.'
Jessica desperately clawed at Evans hands and just as she was just about to pass out he let go.
'He apologised and told me that he loved me and didn't want to lose me,' she says.
'Thought I was going to die'
'I was in love with him and kept thinking how he'd been through so much as a kid. No wonder he lost it sometimes, I thought, excusing him.'
But the next time the couple went to the pub, Evans accused Jessica of staring at another man.
'I denied it but he glared at me,' Jessica says. 'After that it became easier to face the wall when we went out, so I didn't get accused of anything.'
It wasn't long before Evans' paranoia grew to new levels.
'He started demanding I give him my phone to check,' Jessica explains. 'He questioned me about every call or interaction with a male.
'During the day he called me constantly, freaking out if he couldn't reach me immediately. He would accuse me of being with someone else.
'After another night out, where I'd been accused of looking at a man, he grabbed my keys and threw them in a river. Luckily, they landed on a rock.
'As I yelled at him, he grabbed me, yanking my left arm up behind my back so forcefully I felt a pop and I screamed in agony.'
The following day Jessica went to hospital but while no breaks were found she discovered that fractures don't always show.
'I was in pain for weeks and couldn't do a push up for months,' she says.
Meanwhile, Evans' jealousy and violence escalated.
'Kevin beat and strangled me numerous times in a jealous rage or grabbed my hair and threw me around,' Jessica recalls.
'Clumps of hair fell out. He always gaslit me after his attacks, saying they weren't that bad, I was crazy, had hit him or provoked him.'
Jessica began secretly taking pictures of her injuries.
'Clumps of hair fell out'
'If he killed me, I hoped someone would find the evidence of what had been happening,' she explains.
'I continued seeing Kevin though, believing he'd kill me if I ended things.'
While Jessica was careful of how she acted around Evans, she says that sometimes she would 'snap back'.
'Kevin loved to talk himself up,' she says. Once, as I sat astride his lap, he boasted about a woman he'd slept with who, so he claimed, raved about his penis.
"I told him I'd seen bigger. Suddenly, my chest and sides exploded in agony as Kevin slammed his fists into my ribs.'
Jessica went to hospital where she discovered that she had fractured three ribs.
Around April 2018, Evans began mentioning a new friend, called Jennifer*.
'I guessed he was seeing her and that I was now his side chick,' Jessica says. 'I hoped that he would lose interest in me completely.'
That autumn Evans moved back to his hometown, hundreds of miles away, with Jennifer.
'I was relieved to have escaped our relationship with my life,' Jessica says. 'But I was scared for Jennifer.
Relieved to have escaped
"When I learned from social media that Christmas that she'd split from him I messaged her. It turned out she'd been through a similar hell.'
Armed with this new information and worried Evans might return, in January 2019 Jessica went to the police about a court order to keep him away.
The female officer explained that Evans would be charged with the assaults against Jessica.
Months later Evans was charged with assaulting Jessica. Jennifer went to the police and had him charged with assaulting her too.
'By then I learned from social media he'd moved on with Stephanie*, a woman from his hometown,' Jessica says.
In August 2019 Evans was charged with assaulting and threatening Stephanie too and was held on remand.
'My case still hadn't been heard when in January the following year he pled guilty to assaults against Jennifer and Stephanie,' Jessica says.
'Attending court by video, he sat clutching a bible and wearing a crucifix.'
Evans' defence said he had turned to God, had undiagnosed foetal alcohol syndrome and had suffered an abusive childhood.
The court heard that Jennifer and Stephanie had been choked, punched and threatened, with Evans admitting to the abuse.
The prosecution and defence came to an agreement on the sentence, it was the time he'd already served awaiting trial and came to 253 days.
'No man has the right subject his partner to violence,' said Judge Mike Madden, releasing Evans with 18-months' probation.
Conditions were that he get counselling for alcohol and drug abuse, anger management and domestic violence.
'Because he'd admitted assaulting Jennifer and Stephanie, I assumed he'd get a tough jail term when it came to trial for assaulting me,' Jessica says.
'After all, he was now obviously a serial abuser with a horrific record of violence against women. I was so naive.'
Evans' trial for the offences against Jessica was delayed, to give him a chance to prove he was trying to rehabilitate.
After denying the offences against Jessica, in September 2022 Evans received a plea deal.
He admitted five violent assaults against Jessica but the choking charges were dropped.
The prosecutor warned that because Evans had been charged with the offenses against her before Stephanie and Jennifer's he would be treated as a first time offender.
'It was insane,' Jessica says. 'I thought that surely the judge will take into account his past.'
Two months later Kevin was sentenced, appearing via Zoom.
'Nothing compares to being afraid of dying at the hands of the person you love,' Jessica told the court in her Victim Impact Statement.
'In an agreed statement of facts Kevin admitted he'd choked me,' Jessica says. 'Then, I watched in astonishment as Justice Erika Chozik, made extraordinary allowances for this monster.'
'He had a very tragic upbringing, a young boy exposed to family violence. Trauma begets trauma unless the cycle is stopped,' Justice Erika Chozik said, adding that Kevin had made genuine steps towards rehabilitation.
The judge noted he'd shown a 'pattern of abuse' by assaulting Jennifer and Stephanie after Jessica.
But she said she couldn't take that into consideration because Jessica's charges had been first.
'To the court, it was as if what he'd done to Jennifer and Stephanie had never happened and I was the only victim,' Jessica says.
Evans received a one-year conditional sentence, meaning he was free to go but couldn't contact Jessica and had to attend counselling or he'd be jailed. He also got two years of probation.
'It was exactly the kind of lenient sentence a first-time offender would expect, and I was devastated,' Jessica says.
'Kevin deserved a long sentence in prison for what he'd done to me and two other women. The police did a great job in charging Kevin, but the courts let us down.
'Choking should be seen for what it is, attempted murder. Sentences must be tougher for domestic violence. Kevin was lucky none of us died.
'And he was lucky that the courts did deals, bent over backwards to give him chances and then gave him a slap on the wrist for what he did.
'I'm glad I found the courage to report Kevin, but after my experience I have to say, is it any wonder women don't bother to report violence against them?'
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