After about half an hour, Alison and Al arrived back at the villa. As they put their stuff back in their room a sixth sense overcame Al. Something told him that all was not how he left it. Darting straight to the bedside cabinet, he became incandescent with rage. Someone had been messing with his papers. Someone had been snooping.
A furious row followed with Dhalla shouting and swearing, alleging all sorts of breaches of trust and declaring his hatred of Alison’s parents. He was uncontrollable. Alison had not seen this side of him before. It scared her but still she tried to placate him. After all, she knew of none of her family’s suspicions so saw his accusations as bizarre.
Al’s anger intensified over that day and into the next. His rage saw him crashing furniture around their small bedroom. Alison persuaded him to take a walk with her to cool off but still he remained incandescent, lashing out at thin air. Even sleep did not pacify him. At 5 a.m. Alison was awoken by him venting his temper again. Efforts to mollify this spoiled child were wasted.
Pam and David decided they needed to confront Al with what they had found. They tried to tell him that they knew he was lying and that they were worried about their daughter. Nothing they said made him see reason.
Inconsolable, the fuming Dhalla grabbed his belongings, stuffed them into a bag, stormed out of the villa, jumped into a taxi and headed for the airport. Seeing that Alison deserved some explanation, Pam and David sat her down and gently told her all. They delicately took her through Peggy’s warnings, their suspicions, the findings of the private detective and now, the proof they had that Dhalla was a liar.
While confused and angry, Alison remained blind to the risks that Dhalla posed. She felt there had to be a reasonable explanation but it now dawned on her that Peggy had been right; Al was not the man for her.
Once back in the UK, Alison confronted him with what she had been told. He had already admitted lying about his age and his time in the UK but now he finally confessed that the whole orphan story was also made up. So distraught was he over his troubled and fractured family that to the outside world he had effectively airbrushed them from his life, re-designating his mother as his aunt. He said he had been telling this story since he was a little boy as a way to stop people asking too many questions.
Al knew he had to let Alison in on some more of his secrets if he was ever to make her his bride. To her horror, he revealed that he had a dark and violent past. Depicting himself as the victim, he described how, in self-defence, he’d hospitalized an uncle who was attacking him. He tried to justify the fact he’d grabbed a kitchen knife and used it by saying he had finally found the courage to stand up for himself. However, given his uncle’s injuries the court was left with no option than to imprison him.
As time passed, Alison was starting to make concerted efforts to split up with Al but he simply refused to move out of her flat. It was becoming unbearable. She was worn down by his intransigence together with the pressure brought by the investigation at work.
She desperately needed to get away and recharge her batteries. In better times, they had booked a holiday to Canada, so she agreed to keep to those plans and use the break as an opportunity to rest.
Being stalked and intimidated saps so much spirit from victims that they often do things that look odd to those observing from the sidelines and to themselves looking back. Alison described it when she advised me on this chapter as ‘dumb in hindsight’ but she was burned out and in desperate need to get away from it all — even if it was with Dhalla. While there she met the woman Al had by now admitted was his mother.
Back home, Elliot was revealing to Pam all the dreadful facts he had learned about Dhalla. The man had served at least two prison terms, had a history of violence including, as recently as in 2006, using a knife to assault his uncle. He was banned from possessing weapons in his homeland and had been barred from entering the USA. Pam shared Elliot’s worries that the trip to Canada might be a ruse to engineer Alison’s kidnapping.
Despite those fears being unfounded, on the couple’s return to the UK their relationship was going from bad to worse. Warnings, which had been coming thick and fast from Pam, were starting to come true.
Alison’s renewed vigour since the Canadian holiday had given her the strength to try to get Al out of her flat once and for all. Despite this, she was becoming aware that he was reading her emails and texts, as he seemed to know her day-to-day movements.
During a busy Christmas Eve night shift, following yet another attempt to get through to Al that the relationship was over, Alison returned to find all the festive decorations ripped down and her degree certificate destroyed in the dustbin. He later denied this but Alison is positive in her claims and there seems no reason to doubt her.
Even visits by the police, triggered by Pam, and an enforced eviction by David and Alison’s brother Paul did not stop Al’s obsessive behaviour. This time it was through the cynical use of silence.
As any stalking victim will confirm, the terror never lets up. The acts themselves are appalling but the anticipation and the fear of what will happen next are equally sinister. He piled on the pressure by doing nothing for a while.
When he broke cover, it was a multi-pronged attack on the reputations and characters of all who had crossed him. A letter to the hospital accusing Alison of murder and theft of drugs was the first twist of the knife. In letters to those he had celebrated with at Pam and David’s wedding, he accused the whole family of drug dealing, possession of weapons, domestic violence, using prostitutes and failing to bury Alison’s grandfather properly. The accusations were as diverse as they were ludicrous.
On their own, these attempts to turn loyal friends, colleagues and employers against such decent people as the Hewitts would be laughable. However, each poison pen letter hurt. The family tried to remain optimistic, hoping that life would settle down once his rage had burned out. If only.
Guessing that Pam and David had employed a private eye, Al did likewise, securing the local services of Tony Yates. Unlike Elliot’s brief, Tony’s was not just to find out information. It was to watch Alison twenty-four seven. See where she went, whom she met and what she did. That was pretty standard. When the requests escalated to asking him to get her to confess who she’d had sex with recently and whether David used prostitutes, Yates became suspicious and refused.
Reality had now dawned on Alison and she knew it was time to involve the police. She had already tried obtaining an injunction but, curiously, this failed as she could not provide a current address for him. Alison had produced a stack of incriminating letters from Al, which were more than enough for us to launch an investigation from. She had suffered so much, as so many do before they go to the police. I am always astounded by what people will go through before they think they can report it. We never really get across well enough that no-one has to put up with violence, abuse and intimidation. The thresholds for police intervention are surprisingly low. Despite what people imagine, there really are no ‘more important things’ for us to be getting on with.
Thankfully, one of Brighton and Hove’s finest and most sensitive detectives, Emily Hoare, now had a grip of this case and would be part of Alison’s life for the next critical months, providing her a vital lifeline.
Nev had clearly got his head around this harrowing and haunting case. He had ramped up the police activity and ensured that he would now be kept personally informed at every turn. He brought me up to speed with what we knew now and what we were doing about it.