Lucy Godley, from Portsmouth, England, spent approximately two and a half years in a relationship marked by violence and control. The nightmare began after she became pregnant in 2021 and, according to her own account, the abuse escalated to include physical, sexual, and psychological violence.
Her former partner, Ben Siddle, also exerted strong control over her and monitored her phone. That is why Lucy began secretly collecting evidence. She photographed her own injuries and sent the pictures to her mother, then deleted the images from her phone to prevent them from being discovered. Mother and daughter eventually built an evidence file together.
Lucy knew that gathering this evidence could be dangerous. She said she feared that if Siddle discovered what she was doing, the consequences would be even worse. Even so, she continued documenting what happened while trying to communicate discreetly with her mother.
The case eventually reached the courts. After a trial lasting two weeks, Siddle was found guilty of 10 offenses related to the reported incidents and received a sentence of 23 years in prison. The sentence was handed down in 2026, following an investigation that had begun years earlier.
One of the most impactful moments came when Lucy received the verdict.
She was not in court: her friends went to her home to tell her that Siddle had been found guilty. A camera in her home recorded the moment they arrived and Lucy burst into tears as she hugged them.
After the entire process, Godley began using her experience publicly to speak about domestic violence and help other victims. Her story went from being an experience she had kept secret for years to becoming a way of raising awareness of how control and isolation can make it difficult for a victim to get help and gather evidence against their abuser.