“My husband installed a CCTV camera in our bedroom and a tracking app on my phone because he had complete control over my life.”

A mother of two has managed to escape a forced relationship after friends noticed she had become a “scared girl” to her husband of eight years. Kat Bevan had a “happy” relationship with Christopher Bevan when they first met on snowboarding vacations and trips to faraway destinations like Mexico. But after they got married and moved into their “eternal home”, Kat noticed a change in Christopher’s demeanor, and within two years, she felt more like a “housekeeper and nanny” than a wife and mother.

When her husband’s behavior took a turn for the worse, Kat found trackers on his phone and a camera in his bedroom that followed his every move. Too afraid of making a wrong move in case he provoked hookup accusations – and Bevan even monitored her Fitbit to count her steps at the supermarket – Kat found herself turning into a shell of her normal self. She realized that she no longer had privacy, as her husband read all messages and monitored all calls.

Kat wants to share her story in hopes that it might help others who are going through the same thing.

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On Thursday, December 15, Kat watched as a man she met at work in 2004 was jailed for 12 months, suspended for two years, for coercive and controlling behavior. Bevan had previously pleaded guilty at a court hearing and admitted his behavior was unacceptable and illegal.

The couple started dating in 2006 and the following year Kat moved to Swansea to live with Bevan, a service engineer, full time. After proposing on Kat’s 30th birthday while on vacation in Mexico, they were married in 2012 in Swansea and welcomed a daughter in August two years later. In 2017, they had a son and moved into what Kat calls “forever home”.

It was at this time that the first cracks began to appear, as Bevan began to show signs of depression, which worsened in 2018. Kat has just returned to work after maternity leave: “I have been busy working and taking care of our family”, she said. . “It was starting to be difficult because I didn’t have Christopher’s support or help. I felt like a maid and nanny, not a wife and mother.”

First, there were allegations of an affair with Kat, after which a CCTV camera was installed in the kitchen monitoring Kat, who was working from home one day a week. Her husband’s attention increased: “While I was working, I started getting ‘Find My iPhone’ notifications, which I didn’t pay much attention to at the time,” explained Kat. “So the harassment started with countless phone calls every day.” If she didn’t respond, he would continue to “bombard her with text messages” until she responded. During an evening of eating and drinking with his friends, Christopher harassed Kat by making 50 phone calls in 60 minutes.

Kat was asked up to four times a day about the alleged connections. She said: “Then CCTV cameras started to appear in every room in our house, including our bedroom and the children’s room. The camera in our bedroom focused on me sleeping in bed because he thought I was talking to someone while he was sleeping. During the day, the time he would watch me change clothes, get dressed, and do general housework in our room. My privacy was stolen from me, not just in our bedroom, but in our entire house. He even vandalized our room for “evidence” of an affair and closed the ground floor windows because he thought people had broken in.

Bevan accessed her WhatsApp messages on her own computer and installed a kid-friendly app on her phone to monitor her text messages, Internet searches and social media activities. If she spent “too much time” on social media, Bevan would lock Kat on her own phone and ask for permission to regain access.

“It was at that moment that I realized that I couldn’t communicate with friends or family without him knowing,” said Kat. Her husband even monitored her Fitbit to see how many steps she took in the supermarket, believing she would meet someone in the store. Due to the Covid rules in place at the time, the whole family went to the shops and Christopher stayed in the car with the kids. Any pleasantries exchanged while they were out in public would lead Kat to accuse her of having an affair again.

“So I started walking around with my head down so as not to make eye contact,” Kat said. The turning point was a visit from a friend on her 40th birthday.

“My friend came to me with a gift,” Kat recalled. “She was very concerned about my appearance because I looked like, in her words, ‘a scared little girl who should just sit still and not talk.’ Up until this point, my family and friends were worried about what was going on as much as they could. You will see a complete change in me: I went from a cheerful and sociable person to a calm and closed person. I wasn’t the person everyone knew.”

Unbeknownst to Kat, her concerned family has reached out to the Women’s Shelter. The organization told them how to ask Kat if she was okay and what her status was. Her older brother managed to get five minutes alone with Kat at their children’s birthday parties and questioned her appropriately. The following weekend, while visiting her parents in MacArthur Glen with Bevan’s special permission, Kat managed to have a long phone conversation with her brother, who told her that her living situation “wasn’t normal”.

“I was allowed to meet my parents at MacArthur Glen, Bridgend for coffee but on the basis that I brought the children with me,” he explained. “It was the first time I wasn’t with Christopher to talk openly about what was going on. I had a good conversation with my brother on the phone, and he explained to me that he had contacted Casa da Mulher and that my living situation was not normal. We talked for a good 45 minutes during which time she gave me food for thought and told me that the Women’s Shelter was there to help me if I needed it.’

When Kat and her six-year-old daughter returned home at lunchtime, Bevan wasted no time in “asking” her daughter if “the mother left her with her grandmother and had an accident” and if she was on another phone with someone. 🇧🇷 Upon learning of Kat’s conversation with her brother, she got angry and demanded confirmation of the conversation. “Then I dropped the coin and called my parents to come get us right away,” Kat recalled.

Kat has been living in Cardiff since leaving the family home in Carmarthen over the August 2020 bank holiday. She has returned to Swansea for a few weekends, hoping to somehow salvage her marriage and “see if Christopher has changed”. Kat added: “It was obvious nothing had changed and that’s when I knew our marriage was over.”

She has since denounced her ex-husband’s harassment, been dragged to the family court and now to crown court. It’s been a long road to finding some semblance of normality, but now Kat is proud of her life. But even Bevan’s departure didn’t solve all the problems right away, as he was able to access all of his new phones and email accounts.

“I tried to come up with four different numbers and accounts that he could access,” Kat said. “At that point, I had no choice but to call the police.” South Wales Police put Kat in touch with Action Fraud, who helped secure all of her accounts. Dyfed Powys Police launched an investigation into coercive and controlled behavior after learning of Kat’s experience with her husband.

Meanwhile, Kat sees Bevan hiding in the street during a shopping weekend with her mother, and six months later discovers a tracking device installed in his car. Slowly but surely, Kat came to understand that what happened to her wasn’t her fault. On Thursday, Judge Catherine Richards also handed Bevan a 10-year restraining order and ordered him to complete a rehabilitation course, a relationship development course and 150 hours of unpaid work.

Thanks to the tremendous support and advice from Women’s Aid and the “enormous” support from friends who were shocked to learn what Kat had been through, she was able to start rebuilding her life. “Without my family and friends, I don’t know where I would be today,” she added.

“Over the past two years, since I left the weekend of August 2020, I have had a really hard time accepting everything and have been scared and paranoid that he was tracking my location. I kept looking over my shoulder. in case I showed up and I was afraid to go somewhere alone, even on a school run… Over time, this subsided and I started to come back to myself a little.

“Once Christopher was accused of coercive and controlling behavior in the summer of 2022, I could dive in and start my new life. I am a stronger person and, more importantly, a much happier person than ever before. I am enjoying my new life and look forward to what the future holds.”

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