Like many domestic abusers, Meshach Clement-Graham, previously of Northampton, bided his time when he first entered into a relationship with the survivor in 2018, acting charming and compassionate.
“You didn’t start off as a monster,” wrote the woman in her victim impact statement. “It was a calculated, dangerously slow and gradual process. You consistently did the work you needed to break me, like clockwork. You mixed your abuse with sporadic nice treatment, to keep me thinking maybe it wasn’t so bad. You gaslighted me and manipulated me until truth became a lie and a lie became a truth.”
In a single night, Clement-Graham phoned the woman 80 times before turning up at her house threatening to harm himself with scissors if she didn’t let him in. This led to him being sentenced to a two year community order and remanded into custody as he breached a number of domestic violence protection orders in committing these offences.
Upon his release from prison, he reconnected with the victim and the cycle of abuse started again with Clement-Graham overwhelming her with abusive messages, stalking her to her workplace, her son’s school, and her friends and family’s addresses.
Violence was also used over the course of their relationship. On one occasion, Clement-Graham strangled the woman, causing her to black out, and stabbed a knife into the bed near her head when she came to.
She said: “I suffer from constant nightmares replaying the last day I suffered at your hands, attempting to scream for my life and no noise leaving my mouth because you had your hands squeezed so tightly around my throat. When I then regained consciousness I begged you to let me call my son to say goodbye.”
Whenever the woman would threaten to go to the police during their relationship, Clement-Graham would make threats to kill himself or release a video he called his “insurance policy” which was of the woman asleep with the lower half of her body exposed.
In a huge display of bravery and trust, she reported the abuse to Northamptonshire Police in May 2022, leading to the arrest of Clement-Graham and charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, stalking, and two counts of breaching a non-molestation order.
After pleading guilty to all four offences at Northampton Crown Court on November 21st, 2022, he was sentenced at the same court this week (April 4th) to two years and eight months in prison. A 10-year restraining order was also imposed.
