Woman stalked by ex-partner issues warning before his prison release | Domestic violence

A woman who was stalked and held hostage at gunpoint by her ex-partner has warned other women to beware of him as he is about to be released from prison.

Rhianon Bragg has become a brilliant campaigner on domestic violence and gun crime but she expressed sadness that she felt she had yet not done enough to protect women from offenders like her former partner Gareth Wyn Jones, who was sentenced in 2020.

In a statement released to the Guardian directly addressing women who might soon come into contact with Jones, Bragg warned women to be aware of being manipulated by stalkers.

She said that when she ended the relationship she began to hear about Jones’s previous behaviour. She wrote: “People felt the need to speak out, to tell me what they knew, to in some way apologise. I hope for you forewarned is forearmed.”

Bragg has researched domestic violence and gun crime since Jones’s conviction and speaks to police forces, charities, politicians and educational establishments about her experience.

Jones is expected to be released in a few weeks’ time and Bragg, who lives in north Wales, is worried about her own and her family’s safety and is keen to warn other women.

She said some stalkers needed to establish early on, before any romantic relationship, that they are faultless, and that they saw other people or other situations as being to blame and never them.

“Although I don’t know you, I suspect I know a bit about you,” she wrote, addressing readers. “It’s likely that in some way, even though you may not think it, you’re vulnerable.”

She said for many domestic offenders and stalkers the behaviour was “hardwired”. “It’s a pattern. It will repeat. Knowing that, I wanted to prevent you from experiencing what I have, I needed to do something. I’m afraid that I haven’t done enough,” she wrote.

Bragg began a relationship with Jones, a mechanic, after moving to her family’s smallholding in Eryri (Snowdonia). During the five-year coercive relationship, Jones increasingly verbally abused and physically assaulted her, and when she ended the relationship in 2019 he began stalking and threatening her.

She repeatedly told police he was menacing her and her four children. During this time, Jones was arrested three times and his licensed firearms were seized but no further action was taken and his weapons were returned.

In August 2019 he ambushed Bragg and held her at gunpoint for eight hours overnight, releasing her when he was convinced that the relationship would continue. The police were called and in February 2020 Jones was sentenced to four and a half years in custody, to be followed by a five-year licence on release.

Bragg said she had been naive about the effectiveness of the criminal justice system in protecting people like her. The Crown Prosecution Service has admitted it had enough evidence to charge Jones three months before he held Bragg hostage.

She wrote: “I’d believed in justice and the law. I had no idea. The scales have well and truly fallen from my eyes. The criminal justice system is making positive change but not enough, not fast enough, to prevent the scourge that is domestic terrorism.”