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Home / World

Boyfriend stabbed and starved by his controlling girlfriend tells of his mental and physical torture

By Shekhar Bhatia
Daily Mail·
17 Apr, 2018 07:10 PM7 mins to read

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Jordan Worth, 22, inflicted a catalogue of injuries on her boyfriend Alix Skeel. Source: Daily Mail

A battered boyfriend made to suffer at the hands of his "controlling" girlfriend has spoken for the first time about the torment he suffered as she was jailed for seven and a half years.

Bravely waiving his anonymity, Alix Skeel told MailOnline he was speaking out because he wanted to campaign against domestic abuse.

Skeel, 22, fought back tears as he told MailOnline: "I thought my limbs might have to be amputated. I had open burns. I lost three stones (19kg) in weight. I went from 10 stones down to seven. It was awful. It was three years of mental abuse and then it turned physical."

Worth met her partner when they were both 16. There is now a restraining order preventing her from contacting him for an indefinite period. Photo / Facebook
Worth met her partner when they were both 16. There is now a restraining order preventing her from contacting him for an indefinite period. Photo / Facebook

His girlfriend Jordan Worth, 22, made his life a misery by inflicting a catalogue of injuries on him in violent attacks.

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She stabbed him with a knife, scalded him with boiling water, banned him from their bed and decided what clothes he should wear.

Worth, who lived with Skeel in the village of Stewartby, Bedfordshire, also isolated him from his friends and took over his Facebook account.

Skeel said: "I was infected from the burns pretty much all over my body. Luckily they managed to treat it.

"The physical violence happened for about nine months and for four years before that it was mental abuse."

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Skeel said he was 16 when he met her in 2012 when they became friends while they both went to drama college at Bedford and he was in the lower sixth form.

"She was probably only girl I ever felt was interested in me. I never had that before. But she clearly used my history to her advantage to go on and do what she did."

He continued: "She would constantly say that this was the way to do things. And because I was wooed by her, flattered, I believed her. But it wasn't normal. She wanted to basically change who I was.

"My family said that they knew the mental abuse was going on, but didn't know about the physical violence. She kept me away from them for two years. I have a very loving family and loving parents and she wouldn't allow me to talk to them. She would hit me and throw boiling water on me and stab me in the arms and say that I'd been speaking to my family, but I hadn't."

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Skeel and Worth lived together, with Worth controlling every aspect of her boyfriend's life.
Skeel and Worth lived together, with Worth controlling every aspect of her boyfriend's life.

Aspiring teacher Worth, who has a degree from the University of Hertfordshire, had come from a loving and supportive family, and had raised money for children in Africa.

But Luton Crown Court heard she cruelly controlled every aspect of Skeel's life.

Prosecutor Maryam Syed said a relationship began and later they moved in together but from an early stage she was exercising control over him deciding what he could wear.

But the prosecutor said worse was to come as she became violent towards the man, who the court heard suffered from hydrocephalus which is caused by a buildup of fluid inside the skull which made him vulnerable.

She used blunt objects to strike him, wounded him with a knife and didn't help him get to hospital for treatment.

For nine months he couldn't sleep in the same bed as her, the court was told.

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Worth pleaded guilty to controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate relationship, wounding with intent and causing grievous bodily harm with intent between April 2016 to June last year.

Neighbours of the couple often heard them arguing said Syed and the sounds of things being thrown in the house.

She said the victim was heard by his neighbours shouting at Worth: "Get off me, you are hurting me."

He was seen on occasions with black eyes and to be limping and with his arm in sling.

Skeel added: "My family never thought it would be physical. But it just got worse and worse.

"It started off with little things with her just hitting me, and punching me and then It got to her having a bottle in her hand.

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"And every time I removed a weapon, she would go onto the next one and it led to being hit with hammers, getting stabbed with knives and having boiling water thrown over me."

Alix Skeel and his ex-girlfriend Jordan Worth, who has been sentenced to jail after abusing him. This image was posted in 2016 on Skeel's social media page.
Alix Skeel and his ex-girlfriend Jordan Worth, who has been sentenced to jail after abusing him. This image was posted in 2016 on Skeel's social media page.

Skeel said he wants to set up a refuge for battered men. He attends a group for domestic violence victims and would like to help others. He said he had been told by the police that there had been a spike in the number of male victims in recent years.

The court heard it was in June of last year that neighbours called police to the couple's home in the village in the early hours after hearing shouting.

The ambulance crew noted injuries to his hand, burns to arms and legs which were being self treated with cling film.

There was cling film round his ankles, and a hand wound that was bleeding.

He was taken to Bedford Hospital's acute clinical unit and then to Addenbrookes Hospital.

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Asked by MailOnline if he could have got away, he said: "You can't. When I in hospital after she stabbed my wrist and my tendons in my hand, she walked out of the building because they were going to operate on me. The senior consultant rubbed my eyes with his thumb and said, 'Are you sure you are safe to go home?'

"He knew that [what was going on]. And he flagged it with the police. But they have to go on what I say and, at the time, I was scared of the consequences of going against the person abusing me.

Jordan Worth pleaded guilty to controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate relationship, wounding with intent and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
Jordan Worth pleaded guilty to controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate relationship, wounding with intent and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

"If I did anything out of turn that she didn't want it just got worse. I never spoke to my mum and dad for two years. She didn't allow it. And if I did, there would've been massive repercussions. She said to me 'I want to take you away from your family and ruin your life.'

"I remember one time she hit me on the head with a laptop plug and I was bleeding and I said, 'Please help me'. I had my head down and blood was pouring out of it. She walked up the stairs and I said again 'Please help me' and she said, 'Go and die!'

"She just walked laughing up the stairs. That's when I thought that it couldn't get any worse. But then she started throwing boiling water over me. It happened twice in two different hotels. I was asleep she poured boiling water all over my back.

"It was an alarm call of boiling water hitting my skin. I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night for no reason at all other than that happened. In the second hotel, she kept filling up jugs of boiling water and throwing them all over me."

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Worth's current partner James Clarke is sticking by his girlfriend.
Worth's current partner James Clarke is sticking by his girlfriend.

On June 6, 2017 he was examined at the Lister Hospital in Stevenage and found to have burns on his legs as well as stab wounds about his body and limbs. Days later Worth was arrested.

The court heard the couple are no longer together and Worth, who is in a new relationship with James Clarke, has been living at an address in Ingoldisthorpe, Norfolk.

Jailing Worth judge Nic Madge told the court: "She accepts that she has in the past, on a number of occasions, used blunt objects and implements to strike him and that he suffered injuries as a result of her doing so.

"She accepts using boiling or hot water to cause injury to him. She accepts that she has in the past used a knife to cause injury to her partner."

Worth was also made the subject of a restraining order which prevents her from contacting Skeel for an indefinite period.

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