My ear was sliced off... by my boyfriend
Cherise, before the attack
Saturday 13th October 2007
I took one last look around the living room then picked up my white leather handbag.
'Ready,' I said.
'Let's get going then,' my boyfriend, Frederick Semanshia, 21, smiled. 'I need to stop off in London to see a mate on the way.'
Frederick and I had been together a year and shared a flat in Portsmouth, where he was studying economics at uni. We'd met when he handed me a flier for a club night he was organising.
'Hey beautiful, what's your name? I'll put you on the guest list' he'd smiled.
I'm not ashamed to admit he'd completely bowled me over.
Popular, attractive, funny. People flocked round Frederick. Just being with him made me feel pretty popular too. So when he asked me to move in with him after a few days I didn't hesitate. Fast? Maybe but Frederick wasn't the kind of guy to hang about.
And, when, after a year together, I discovered I was five weeks pregnant, we'd been thrilled.
Only last week I'd gone to visit my mum, Jennifer, 41, and sister Letifa, 17, in Ipswich to tell them my news and suddenly realised how homesick I was. I'd brought up the subject with Frederick.
'I want to bring up our baby close to my family,' I explained.
'I understand,' he'd smiled. 'I can transfer my course to Suffolk University College.
I'd been so relieved at how understanding he'd been.
So two weeks on here we were, getting ready to go home. It was 8pm by the time we'd loaded the car and got on our way. Exhausted, I quickly fell asleep. When I woke it was 1am and Frederick was parking outside a posh mansion block.
'Where are we?' I asked groggily.
'I have some business to do here,' Frederick said. 'You can come in and look around if you like.'
I'd expected a fancy apartment but the place was derelict and smelt of stale wee. The kitchen window had been smashed, there were no carpets and there was bird dirt all over the floors.
'It's where me and my friends have stolen goods delivered,' Frederick announced.
'What?' I gasped, shocked.
Stolen goods? What the hell was he on about?
Frederick was a student, not some wheeler dealer.
I was about to say more but Frederick's glare silenced me. As his eyes bore into me I began to feel uneasy.
'Can we go now please?' I asked, turning away.
Like lightning Frederick grabbed my hands and pinned them behind my back, shoving me forwards into the narrow bathroom.
'What are you doing?' I cried, as my handbag clattered to the floor.
'Have you got something to tell me?' he asked, gripping my wrists tightly.
'What?' I spluttered. 'Just take me home. This isn't funny. You're scaring me.'
But this was no joke. I gasped in pain as Frederick bound my wrists together, the rope cutting into my skin. In panic, my eyes scanned the bathroom, but there was no escape. The only light was a yellow glare from the street lamp outside the small window. There was a dirty white sink, a bath and a toilet. Paint was peeling from the walls. At the bottom of the bath was what looked like a pool of dried blood.
Fear crawled down my spine. Who was this Frederick? I didn't know the madman standing in front of me. Turning me roughly to face him, Frederick sat me on the edge of the bath. Taking a piece of white nylon rope from a blue carrier bag he tied my ankles together.
A sob escaped my lips.
'Please no,' I cried.
But he was a like a man possessed as he took out a white flannel and stuffed it into my mouth. I gagged as he tried to tie it in place with more rope. When he couldn't get it to stay he threw the flannel to the floor.
Heaving I turned and vomited into the sink next to me.
'Why are you doing this?' I choked.
'You know why,' he seethed, straddling me, his face just inches from mine.
I only wish I did know. Then perhaps I could stop all this.
His eyes narrowed to slits.
'Now I've had enough talking. It's your turn. Every time you tell a lie, I'll cut your face.'
I flinched as he took a penknife from the blue bag. What he did next will live in my nightmares forever.Slowly, calmly, he sliced off my left ear and placed it in the sink. Horror and pain engulfed me.
'What have you done?' I roared.
For a few seconds I went deaf and everything was black. I was so shocked I couldn't move. The only sensation I felt was a stinging pain and blood trickling down my neck.
Think. Think. Breathe. Stay conscious. If I fainted he was going to kill me and our unborn baby. I had to stay awake.
'I'm going to ask you questions and you're going to nod or shake your head,' Frederick continued, taking a razor blade from the bag.
'Have we just driven from Portsmouth? Are you 19?'
Petrified, I nodded.
'Have you cheated on me?' Frederick asked.
'No!' I cried out.
'Liar,' Frederick hissed, slashing my cheekbone just missing my left eye.
Pain scorched and my head swam. Why would he think I'd cheated on him? The only time we were ever apart was when I visited my family in Ipswich… Too late, I realised the awful truth. Frederick thought I wanted to go home because I'd met someone else. It was crazy. I'd only been away a few days, and I was carrying his baby…
'Have you been seeing someone in Ipswich?' he asked.
Again and again. I shook my head 'no', but with every question he slowly, agonisingly tore the flesh from my face. This was insanity. Twice more he stopped. I heard him gagging and hoped it was over. But each time he came back and the cutting went on.
Hours passed and I struggled to stay conscious. How long had I been in this makeshift torture chamber? One hour, two? Who knew. But when Frederick lifted my blood soaked top, rage engulfed me. No. Not my baby.
'You don't deserve to have my baby inside you,' he said, pressing the blade against my stomach. 'I want to cut it out of you.'
'I'm sorry!' I cried. 'You're right, it's all my fault.'
If I agreed with him maybe I could save my baby.
The razor didn't puncture my belly but my bump tensed as he dragged it slowly across my skin. Suddenly Frederick took off my trainers and began slashing the soles of my feet. My socks become strips of material hanging off my ankles. Then he fumbled in my bag for my mobile phone, took two pictures of me and sneering walked out. What kind of sick monster....?
Delirious, I collapsed backwards into the blood-splattered bath.
'Help me,' I whimpered, petrified he was going to leave me to die in this hellhole.
'Please. I need the loo,' I stammered finally.
Frederick grunted then lifted me up.
'I'd go to prison for you,' he bellowed.
I was so frightened I thought I'd be sick.
When I'd finished Frederick untied my ankles, shoving my trainers back on my bloody, swollen feet. Then he picked up my ear from the sink and dropped it into my white handbag.
Just like that. Bile rose up my throat.Was I dreaming? Had he actually put my severed ear in my handbag? This could not be happening to me. How could the man I thought I loved be torturing me like this?
Outside in the street it was still dark. The wounds to my feet were so painful, I could barely stand and Frederick dragged me to the car.
'Lie down,' he hissed, pushing back the passenger seat.
As I did I glimpsed the clock on the dashboard – 6am. I'd been in that torture chamber for five hours.
Climbing into the car beside me Frederick took off his bomber jacket and sliced off the sleeves with the razor blade, shoving them roughly over my bleeding hands. Then he cut a square from the back and covered my face.
'Please take me home,' I murmered deliriously.
I'd lost so much blood I was barely consciousness as Frederick drove around London for hours.
Finally, we stopped.
'Wait here. I'm hungry. I'm going to Tesco to buy some food,' Frederick said.
After he'd gone I sat up. It was 2pm. What was he going to do with me?
I didn't dare try to escape in case he caught me. Instead, I pulled down the sun visor.
I shuddered as I stared at my butchered face in the mirror. What was left of my hair was caked in blood. I couldn't even see what he'd done to my ear. Horrified, I lay back down and closed my eyes. I woke two hours later, alone.
Gasping for air, I wrenched the car door open. My feet were so sore I collapsed, but I saw a phone box opposite. People stared at me as I staggered over and dialled 999.
'He cut off my ear,' I screamed, between gasps for breath.
Within seconds an ambulance arrived.
'My baby. Check my baby,' I begged.
At Chase Farm Hospital, London, I was given three blood transfusions and told I'd had two hours to live.
'Who did this to you?' asked a policewoman.
'I can't tell you,' I sobbed hysterically. 'He'll come back and kill me if I do.'
'You're under police guard,' she soothed me.
Finally, after an hour, I'd calmed down enough to give them Frederick's name.
Shortly after I was transferred to a specialist plastic surgery unit at London's Royal Free Hospital.
The police had called my family and Mum, Letifa and my dad, Steven, 42, were waiting for me.
'Oh Cherise,' Mum choked when she saw me. Dad and Letifa were so shocked they couldn't speak.
Then a scan showed my baby had died.
'I'm so sorry,' said the doctor. 'You lost so much blood I'm afraid the baby couldn't survive.'
That was the first time I cried.
'There's no point in me living,' I sobbed to Mum as she rocked me in her arms.
The next day I had plastic surgery and over 300 stitches. Doctors explained it was too late to re-attach my ear so they just sewed up the wound. I'd left my handbag at the flat, I later found out the police found it there.
'I'm afraid you're going to be badly scarred,' the surgeon told me.
Right then, I didn't care. My baby was dead. The police still hadn't found Frederick and I was frightened for my life.
Finally, two weeks after his attack, in March 2007, the police called.
'He's handed himself in,' they said.
I was taken to the street and recognised the building immediately but just being outside it made me sick.
'Please don't make me go in,' I wept, so I was taken home.
Later the police told me they'd found a bucket with traces of my blood on it. On 1 June 2007, Frederick pleaded guilty to grievous bodily harm and false imprisonment at Wood Green Crown Court, London. More than anything I wanted to know how he was capable of such a vicious attack. And for what reason? But I'd never find out. Two months later, in August 2007, he was sentenced to life.
Today, I'm still struggling to move on. I need two further operations to reconstruct my ear using cartilage from my ribcage, as it was too late to reattach my own. But it's the scarring I'm most self-conscious about. Every time I leave the house people stare at me in horror. I used to be confident and bubbly, now I just want to curl up in a corner.
I don't know if I'll ever trust a man again. I thought I knew Frederick but I couldn't have been more wrong about him. I lost my baby and my looks because of Frederick, but I'm not going to let him take my life, too.
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