Her husband is now behind bars after she bravely took the decision to press charges against him – spurred on by the fear her young sons would one day witness a beating.

“There were times when Gary was sweet,” she says.

“He would shower me with gifts and flowers and be so loving.

"It was hard to associate that Gary with the monster he could become.

"He was good at making me believe I was to blame when he hit me.

"And a part of me also clung on to the belief that I could help him.”

Colette met Gary on the first day of their art foundation course at Salford University in September 1991, when they were both 17.

She says he was charming and funny and the pair soon became inseparable.

In March 1992, they went on a working holiday to France.

It was on a campsite there that Colette got her first taste of her boyfriend’s violent temper.

She explains: “We’d gone for drinks with a group of work colleagues.

"We were all having a laugh but when we went back to our tent, Gary was really quiet.

“I asked him what was wrong. Without warning, he punched me in the face several times, accusing me of flirting.

“I was distraught. I had a black eye and a swollen face.

"Even though I was sure I hadn’t been flirting, I began questioning myself.”

The next day Gary begged Colette to forgive him.

He eventually managed to persuade her the incident was a one-off.

To avoid awkward questions from colleagues, the pair packed up and left for Paris before returning to the UK, where Colette told friends she’d hit her head on a tent pole.

“I’ve always hated lying,” she says. “But I felt I had to as I was so ashamed.”

Over the next few years, Colette stayed with Gary despite his occasional violent outbursts.

Eventually she and Gary moved in together in Manchester and then in May 1997, Colette unexpectedly fell pregnant.

Gary was thrilled at the prospect of becoming a father, while Colette believed a stable family life would be good for him as he’d had a troubled upbringing.

They married that June and throughout her pregnancy Gary was the perfect husband, joining her at scans and cooking her dinner.

But the moment Owen, now 10, was born, everything changed.

Colette recalls: “I was sitting down holding Owen when he was about six weeks old.

"Gary had been winding himself up, jealous of the bond between Owen and I, when suddenly he threw an empty beer bottle at my head. It left a huge lump.

“I can’t describe how shocked I was. I told him I couldn’t believe he had done it while I was holding Owen.

"His response was: ‘Don’t worry, I’m a good shot.’

“I went to bed stunned that he had lashed out. The next day he begged for forgiveness again.

"I know people might think I’m naive or stupid for staying with him, but he was the father of my child.

"His own childhood had been difficult and that made it even harder to leave him.”

As the years went by, Gary’s violence escalated and the most trivial thing would set him off.

At first he would say sorry, but eventually he stopped apologising.

“Sometimes he’d make me feel it was my fault.

"Other times I knew I wasn’t to blame but would apologise anyway so he wouldn’t blow up,” says Colette.

“I’ve always had a strong personality but around Gary I would walk on eggshells.

"It was like living with Jekyll and Hyde.”

After one violent beating in 2001, Colette almost left him.

Gary demanded that she tell the neighbours to turn their music down, but when she returned, he lashed out.

“I walked back into the house and he started punching and kicking me,” she says.

“He wouldn’t stop. I was lying on the ground, curled up in a ball, trying to protect myself from the blows.

"I thought I was going to die.

“Then he went into the kitchen.

"I thought he might be going to get a knife, so I took the chance to run out of the house.”

Colette went to stay with a friend, but after two days of agonising, she went home.

“I’d left in such a hurry I hadn’t had time to take Owen and I missed him desperately. I had to go back,” she says.

“I wasn’t ready to leave Gary yet, I wasn’t strong enough.

"It’s very hard to explain but, despite everything, I still loved him and he loved me.

"I was sure the sweet and charming man I first met was still in there somewhere.”

The pair decided another baby would bring them closer together and in early 2002, Colette fell pregnant again.

“People find it hard to understand why I’d want to have another baby with Gary.

"But he was a loving dad and would never have hurt our children.

"I convinced myself that the more of a family unit we became, the better things would get,” she explains.

Yet the arrival of Rhys in October 2002 did nothing to stop the beatings.

"And Colette was too ashamed to turn to anyone for help.

“To everyone else we were this perfect couple.

"It made it harder to tell anyone the truth because I thought no one would believe he was capable of what he did to me.

"He’d destroyed my confidence and made me feel so worthless, I was scared that, if I left, he would convince people I was a bad mother and I would lose the children,” she says.

Colette became adept at hiding her bruises, once wearing sunglasses for dinner with her parents and lying that she had an eye infection.

By this point, Colette and Gary had moved to Torquay, Devon, and set up a photography business together, but this had put their marriage under further strain.

Events came to a head in April 2007 when, after another row, Gary bent Colette backwards over the kitchen table and slowly cut her face with a knife.

With his face contorted with rage, he threatened to kill her.

Afterwards, as she shook with fear, he told her: “Your face is a mess. Tidy yourself up.”

Terrified for her life, Colette decided she had no option but to leave.

She was trying to build up the strength when her chance unexpectedly arrived.

Fleeing their home following yet another violent argument, she ran straight into the arms of a community police officer, who had come to investigate neighbours’ complaints of a disturbance.

It was then that Colette agreed to press charges.

“I broke down during the police interviews because I was reliving it all,” she says.

“When I made the decision to leave, I realised how bad it was and wondered why I didn’t do it years ago.”

This June, Gary pleaded guilty to two sample charges of actual bodily harm at Exeter Crown Court and was sentenced to three years in prison.

Colette says: “I didn’t go to court to hear Gary’s sentence, but I cried with relief that I didn’t need to be scared any more.

“The boys know where their dad is. It was hard for them, especially Owen.

"He’d seen Gary shouting at me and was more aware of what had been going on than Rhys.”

Colette and Gary are now divorced and she is moving on with her life.

As well as planning to become a domestic violence counsellor, she’s thrilled to have found love again with Martin Moseley, Owen’s football coach.

They met when she asked Martin to speak to her son, who had been affected by his parents’ volatile marriage.

Their happiness was sealed when Martin, 50, proposed this May.

“No one understands what it’s like to be abused by your partner unless they’ve experienced it,” Colette says.

“Everyone helped me so much – my parents, friends, the police, social workers.

" I’d made so many excuses to stay but I didn’t need to. The support is there.

“I’m living proof that things can get better. I feel free for the first time in 16 years. And, finally, I’ve got my fairy-tale ending.”

If you are a victim of domestic violence and need help, call Women’s Aid on 0808 200 0247 or visit Womensaid.org.uk.

Have you ever been a victim of domestic violence? What advice would you give to women in the same situation? Why do you think women stay in abusive relationships?

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Photography: rebecca bradbury hair and make-up: jenny clark at mustard models