A model who escaped an abusive relationship has told how her violent ex stabbed her in the leg and threatened to chop her body into little pieces.
Yvonne Bar, 26, from Frankfurt in Germany, first met her boyfriend Tim (not his real name) through a mutual friend 10 years ago.
She said: "I had a crush on him right from the beginning, he was so funny and sweet."
Soon after meeting, the pair became an item. But it wasn't long before Tim started to show a darker side.
"We would spend all of our time together but he could get quite jealous about stuff, like if I talked to a guy," Yvonne said.
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"He was always very protective of me. I never thought he would get violent.
"I thought he loved me and we would be together forever."
But as time went on, Tim's jealousy grew. Soon he was angry whenever Yvonne spent time with her friends, claiming they were a "bad influence" on her.
"He would tell me that they were not my real friends and I should give up all contact with them," she said.
"I didn’t take much notice of it really, I just thought that was him and if I showed him that I loved him he would stop."
She described a frightening incident when she and Tim were on the bus, and a man carrying a baby sat down next to Yvonne.
"After we got off, he got super aggressive and said the guy had been trying to flirt with me and that I was encouraging him."
As Tim's behaviour spiralled out of control, Yvonne's friends begged her to leave him.
She said: "I loved him and I knew that he had this sweet side that they couldn’t see, so I tried to make things work between us."
But one day when the pair came home after visiting Yvonne's family, Tim's abusive nature took a turn for the worse.
Recalling the terrifying ordeal, she said at first everything seemed "normal" at first as the couple watched TV together and talked about the day. But then Tim accused her of looking at another man.
"I started getting upset and got up to go to my bedroom. As I walked down the hallway he came up behind me and threw me to the floor," she said.
"It was such a shock. He turned me over on the ground and started hitting me, beating my face.
"It happened so quickly, I don’t even remember feeling much pain even though I could tell he’d broken my nose and knocked several teeth out.
Yvonne said the adrenaline kept her awake and blocked out the agony as Tim continued his brutal attack.
"He dragged me by my hair all the way to another room and I kept asking him what was going on.
"Tim started screaming that he had stabbed me and I was going to die, he told me that after I was dead he would cut me into pieces and bury me somewhere.
"I couldn’t feel it at first and then I felt a pain in my leg. It was agony," she said.
She revealed a heart breaking moment where she thought she might die in Tim's hands.
"I remember thinking how sad I was that I couldn’t say goodbye to my mum – I just wanted to see her again."
Tim's monstrous attack on Yvonne continued throughout the night. Looking back, the model says the only thing that saved her life was that she didn't scream or try to escape.
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She said: "I tried to stay as calm as possible and to talk to him about how we would get through this and that I wouldn’t tell anybody about what he’d done.
"He kept telling me to close my eyes and go to sleep but I stayed awake and kept asking him to take me to hospital.
"I had a deep slash in my leg, a cut on my face, bruises everywhere, a broken nose and several teeth missing.
"He’d also slashed my bed and stabbed my laptop."
Eventually, Tim agreed to take a bruised and bloodied Yvonne to hospital. She was so weak she couldn't walk, so he had to carry her into the waiting room.
"Once at the hospital I kept quiet and refused to talk to the nurses about what had happened. He was always standing there,” she said.
Luckily, a few days later Yvonne managed to get away from Tim long enough to report him to the police.
Tim was arrested and charged with attacking her, and received a three-year suspended sentence - meaning no jail time.
Slamming the German justice system, Yvonne said: "I feel as though the court punished me more than it did him."
After escaping the violent relationship, the model said she was ashamed to talk about the attack and didn't want to date anyone new. But now, years after her ordeal, she's in a much better place.
She said: "It definitely affected any relationship I had following that one.
"I hated to be alone with a male person for a long time, I couldn’t sleep one night straight for years either.
"I would panic in even relaxed situations but I hate to be around men that are passive aggressive or drunk."
Looking back on her relationship, she said it's easy to think an abusive partner can change and often people can blame themselves for the violent actions of their partner.
"People like that want to control and suppress you, so you stay small and easy to manipulate," she said.
Yvonne, who is currently single, says she's feeling mentally strong, but she's not in a rush to meet anyone right now.
On Instagram as @yvonne_bar_, she wants her followers and any other women in an abusive relationship to know they don't have to stay.
She said: "My advice to anyone worried that their partner is controlling them is to get out.
"If you’re already suspecting it, then they're already doing it."
