‘My ex-wife hired a hitman to murder me’

Rob doted on shy, kind Victoria. Only then her behaviour became more and more concerning…

Flicking on the stage lights, I started organising the chairs in the main hall.

I was in my first year at university, where I was leading the am-dram society, and I was excited for the first session.

Suddenly, in walked a girl with long brown hair and a shy smile.

Over the next few weeks, Victoria and I spent more time together.

She had an infectious laugh, and it wasn’t long before we were a couple.

Victoria was sweet, fun and we were inseparable.

But over time, I noticed she became reliant on me.

She was constantly summoning me from the pub with friends.

But when I invited her out with my friends, she cancelled last minute.

‘I like hanging out with just you,’ she said.

Having only been in one relationship before, I didn’t know if Victoria’s behaviour was unusual.

But my friends made their views clear.

‘She’s a little needy, mate,’ they told me.

But I liked feeling needed.

Then Victoria started getting mysterious stomach pains.

‘I can’t move, I need painkillers,’ she told me one day on the phone.

Of course, I left what I was doing and rushed to her side.

Only when I arrived, the painkillers were on her bedside table.

‘I can’t even lean over,’ she said.

But even after multiple doctors’ appointments, no one could find a reason for her pain.

After finishing university, Victoria and I moved in together.

When she had me to herself, her pain seemed to ease.

But when we were apart, it came back.

One weekend, Victoria was at home visiting her parents, when she called me.

I was going to my cousin’s birthday party, but she was unhappy about it.

‘It’s fine, go,’ she said, bitterly. ‘I’ll just take sleeping tablets and cry myself to sleep.’

I felt myself wavering,

Maybe I should stay in, I thought.

But Victoria was perfectly safe with her parents and miles away.

Then, she said something else.

‘I think we should get married,’ she told me. ‘I know we’ve not talked about it, but we both want to, don’t we?’

She added: ‘You should ask me.’

Victoria would always tell me what she wanted, then make it sound like my idea.

I don’t know if I want to marry you, I thought.

But months later, in the rose garden at Rockingham Castle, we tied the knot.

I put my nerves down to pre-wedding jitters.

I loved Victoria and she clearly loved me.

Over the next few years, Victoria and I muddled along, but she became increasingly controlling.

‘I have to get home to my wife,’ I found myself saying to colleagues.

I didn’t want to face her wrath if I was late.

Then months later, Victoria turned to me.

‘Don’t you think we should have a baby?’ she said.

I wasn’t sure I was ready, but I didn’t want to disappoint her.

It’s what married people do, I reasoned.

In time, our daughter Grace was born.

‘She’s perfect,’ I said as I watched her sleeping in my arms.

‘She’s ours forever,’ Victoria said, equally smitten.

But over time, Victoria became erratic.

She’d taken a job and one day, she called me at work.

‘I need you to come home now,’ she said. ‘Grace is screaming and I have to go to work.’

She hadn’t been paid and was planning on turning up at the company’s office.

But there was silence in the background.

‘Is Grace OK?’ I asked.

The line was quiet for a few seconds, then I heard my daughter’s high-pitched scream.

‘Come home,’ Victoria demanded, then the line went dead.

I rushed back, the same thought going through my mind.

She wouldn’t hurt Grace, would she?

I frantically called our neighbour, who rushed round to check on Grace.

When I arrived home, Grace was next door, while Victoria was on the sofa asleep.

She hadn’t even left the house.

That night, as I bathed Grace, I looked for bruises, but found nothing.

Then when Grace was 18 months old, Victoria suggested we have another baby.

‘Grace needs a sibling,’ she said.

I was exhausted from caring for Grace virtually alone, while jumping to Victoria’s every need.

I was running on empty.

‘I can’t do this any more, I’m leaving,’ I said.

I didn’t even know I was going to say it until the words left my lips.

Victoria gave me a sharp look, eyes full of disgust.

But she didn’t say a word.

By the end of the month, I’d moved out.

At first, our separation was amicable, and I saw Grace three days a week.

And for the first time since Victoria and I had got together 10 years before, I started to enjoy life.

I realised how much she had isolated me from friends and family.

I went to gigs and friends’ weddings.

And after a while, I fell in love with an old friend, Jane.

Jane was the polar opposite of Victoria.

And she loved Grace as if she was her own.

We married three years later.

But over the next few years, Victoria continued to cause problems.

Some weeks, she denied me access to Grace, then other times, she demanded I took Grace at short notice.

It got so bad, I decided to seek a legal custody arrangement.

But Victoria was so manipulative.

Before we’d go to court, she’d accuse me of assault or something equally ridiculous.

Anything to paint me in a negative light.

Then, I found out she’d met a man called Wayne.

One day, he turned up at my door.

‘I know what you did, you hurt her,’ he said.

Victoria had filled his head with lies, telling him I’d abused her and that Grace wasn’t safe with me.

And the lies didn’t stop there.

Months later, my six-year-old daughter walked into school and told teachers something shocking.

‘Daddy hurt me on purpose,’ she said.

To my horror, Grace’s claim was taken seriously.

But an investigation by the local authority found Victoria had offered Grace a lollipop if she lied.

‘I can’t take this any more,’ I told Jane.

I needed Grace to be safe, and I felt with Victoria, she wasn’t.

Her lies were becoming more frequent, and even professionals had concerns about leaving Grace in Victoria’s care.

Then, months later, Victoria announced she and Grace would be moving to Germany to live with Wayne on an army base.

‘I can’t let that happen,’ I told Jane, furious and terrified.

We contacted lawyers and family charities, desperate to make sure Grace was safe.

It got very messy.

Victoria even accused me of drug dealing, gang membership and worse.

But thankfully, after a long legal battle, I was granted custody of Grace, while Victoria was only allowed to contact her by letter.

I was relieved and tried to focus on the future.

A few years passed and one day, in the early hours, I was woken by a banging on the door.

Rushing downstairs, I was met by two policemen.

‘You called about your car being on fire?’ they said.

But my car was perfectly fine and sitting on the drive — and I hadn’t placed a call.

It was strange, but I tried not to worry about it.

The following morning, I was woken again at 5.30am to the sound of a car alarm.

‘Isn’t that ours?’ Jane said, stirring beside me.

I shuffled out of bed in search of my car keys.

But as I left the bedroom, I noticed the front of the house was bathed in orange light and I could hear roaring and crackling noises.

Looking out the window, I gasped.

The car was ablaze and the fire was edging closer to the house.

‘Oh my God, get Grace,’ I yelled to Jane.

Pulling Grace from her bed, Jane and I ran through the house.

Running downstairs, the heat was intense.

We sprinted through the kitchen and into the back garden.

I tore down the back gate and we escaped to safety.

The fire brigade arrived, but the front of the house — including Grace’s bedroom — was already engulfed in flames.

As we waited for the fire to die down, I received a text: You paedo, Robin.

The next day, I was in shock.

I couldn’t help but think what could have happened if the car alarm hadn’t gone off.

A few days later, the police called.

‘We’ve arrested Victoria and Wayne,’ the officer told me.

The police believed they’d planned the arson attack — as I’d also suspected — placing the fake police call from me two nights earlier to see how quickly the police would respond.

The vile text was also from Wayne.

In time, Wayne Wood was sentenced to seven years for arson, but with no evidence of wrongdoing, Victoria was freed.

Terrified, Jane and I moved house, changed Grace’s school and found new jobs.

I just wanted to protect my family.

Then five years later, I received a message on Facebook from a Graham Wall.

Do you know Victoria Breeden? it read.

I was used to messages from the many men Victoria had manipulated into hating me, so I ignored it.

Months later, in our new home, Jane and I welcomed our baby daughter, Hope.

When she was two weeks old, there was a knock at our front door.

Opening it, I was confronted with two serious-looking policemen.

‘Can we come in? We need to talk about Victoria Breeden,’ they said, explaining she was in custody.

I ushered the police into our living room, while my wife, holding our baby, sat, looking confused.

A deeply-buried fear rose inside me.

‘Victoria has been arrested,’ the officer said. ‘We believe her and a man were conspiring to murder someone — you.’

The policemen kept talking but I no longer heard them.

My brain had checked out from the shock

It turned out, Victoria’s boyfriend Graham had grown concerned she was having an affair, and had placed his phone in a cupboard to record her.

When he’d returned home and listened to the recording, he’d heard Victoria plotting my murder with a man named Earl Gernon, asking how easy it would be to make someone disappear.

‘They’d take him to the forest and kick him to death, it’s expensive though,’ Earl said.

She had £18,000 hidden in cans in the house for the job.

My blood ran cold.

Horrified, Graham had taken the recording to the police, and when Victoria found out, she’d gone to the station to get it back.

In time, Victoria Breeden, 39, appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court, where she denied three counts of conspiracy to murder.

The court heard she’d asked three different men she dated to kill me, telling them twisted lies, including that I was violent, a paedophile and that Grace was in danger.

She claimed that what she’d said in the recording was a joke.

To my relief, the jury found her guilty.

She was sentenced to nine-and-a-half years in prison.

Later, thousands of TV viewers watched the investigation unfold in a Channel 4 documentary 24 Hours in Custody: Black Widow.

Afterwards, I realised I needed help to cope with the hell she’d put me through for the past 20 years, and started counselling.

My biggest concern has always been Grace.

I began writing her a letter to explain our lives, but it quickly became a book.

I hope that it will help her understand more about what’s happened to us, how I’ve behaved, and why our relationship with her mother is so complicated.

Now, I am focused on raising my two daughters in a happy home.

At long last, I’m no longer looking over my shoulder.

Rob Parkes, 43