A beauty therapist has revealed her terror at the hands of a bullying ex-boyfriend nearly twice her age who became the first man in the UK to be jailed for emotional abuse.
Ricky Pritchard, 34, from Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, threatened to make 19-year-old Amiah Italia Sudano ‘a rape victim’ if she ended her two-year relationship with him.
It was enough for the courts to convict him of ‘coercive and controlling behaviour’ – the first man in the county to be jailed for the offence, as the threat had breached an existing restraining order.
Amiah bravely recalled his terrifying threats, explaining: ‘Despite being given a restraining order, he’d text me saying, “I’m coming to find you,” and warning me to “be careful.”
‘But worst of all, he threatened: “If you leave me you will be a rape victim, I’ll make sure of that”.’
Ricky Pritchard, 34, from Bedfordshire, (left) was jailed for emotional abuse after threatening to make Amiah Italia Sudano, 19, (right) a ‘rape victim’
Amiah, who has now moved to Wales, started dating Pritchard in 2015 when she was still a teenager, after they met through mutual friends.
The stunning beautician knew her mother, who Amiah does not wish to name, wouldn’t approve because of the vast age-gap and because Pritchard had already had run-ins with the police.
So she kept their relationship secret for more than a year, pretending to stay at a friend’s house when she would instead travel eight miles from her mother’s house in Arsley to Pritchard’s home.
Amiah recalled: ‘Even my friends told me I could do better, but I was attracted to bad boys.
Amiah described how Pritchard said he was ‘coming to find’ her, despite being given a restraining order by the court
‘But when he started asking if I was lying to my mum as I was ashamed of him, I knew I had to come clean.
‘He started texting and calling me all day, pestering me to tell her about us.
‘Crazy about him, rather than seeing his behaviour as controlling, I thought he was nagging because he was completely besotted with me, too.’
Horrified, her mother said bricklayer Pritchard was far too old for her, banning her daughter from seeing him.
But this only made Amiah even more determined to continue her romance.
Pritchard (pictured after his arrest) was given a 18-month jail sentence at Luton Crown Court after being convicted of ‘coercive and controlling behaviour’
She admitted: ‘It only made him seem more attractive and I carried on seeing him behind her back.
‘I’d had a couple of boyfriends before him, but no one had made me feel as special as he did.
‘We’d have fits of the of the giggles together, but no one else got our sense of humour. It felt like us against the world.’
But, 18 months into dating, everything changed, when Pritchard started sending unpleasant texts to Amiah’s mother, telling her she did not know her daughter.
‘He’d put things like, “She’s with me every weekend… bet you didn’t know that!”‘ Amiah said.
Amiah described how Pritchard downloaded a tracking app onto Amiah’s phone so he could see exactly where she was
‘When I challenged him, he said he wanted our relationship to be out in the open. Then he started ringing me up to 20 times a day, asking where I was.’
She even cancelled friends to be with him, after Pritchard insisted all her spare time should be devoted to him.
Amiah continued: ‘Whenever I wasn’t with him, he’d give me the third degree, asking where I’d been and who with. It was relentless.’
Then, one evening in May 2016, he snatched her phone, checking her location settings, to see where she had been.
‘If I said I’d been at work, he didn’t believe me,’ she continued. ‘He’d scream in my face, “Who the hell have you been with?”‘
Amiah said she became terrified about his rages and even handed over her email, Facebook and iCloud passwords
Terrified by Pritchard’s rages, Amiah started restricting her life to going to work or to his flat – even handing over her email, Facebook and iCloud passwords, when he asked for them, as she was scared to refuse.
She said: ‘He was so angry, it really frightened me. He logged into all of them on his phone, changing the passwords, so I couldn’t even access my own accounts.
‘I felt like I had no privacy at all. I was completely trapped.’
Pritchard even downloaded a tracking app onto Amiah’s phone so he could see exactly where she was.
‘I couldn’t even spend time with my family without him asking what I was doing,’ she continued.
Pictured is one of the texts that Pritchard sent to Amiah, which read ‘If u not home again I gonna flip’
‘He’d text, saying, “Prove where you are!” making me send photos of my location.’
If she called her mum during her lunch break, he would scroll through her phone in the evening, demanding to know what they had talked about.
He did not even leave her to sleep in peace.
Instead, Amiah would wake in the early hours to find 40 texts from him, asking what she was doing and who with.
‘Knowing I was being watched all the time sent shivers through me, but I didn’t think I could do anything about it and was too scared of what he might do to me,’ she confessed.
Then, in February 2017, her mother confronted her, saying she no longer recognised Amiah, adding that she had to end her relationship with Pritchard.
Pritchard said her mother became very concerned about Pritchard’s controlling behaviour
She said: ‘I knew, deep down, mum was right. His controlling behaviour had taken over my life.’
But, when she told him it was over, Pritchard erupted in rage, grabbing her phone from her hand and throwing it at the floor, so it smashed completely.
Petrified, Amiah fled back to her mum, who urged her to call the police.
Arrested, Pritchard appeared at Luton Magistrates Court at the start of March this year, pleading guilty to causing criminal damage and was given a restraining order, to protect Amiah.
Sadly, he ignored it and his abuse and intimidation continued – culminating in his chilling rape threat.
After telling him that their relationship was over, she described how Pritchard erupted in rage
Pritchard was eventually jailed for coercive and controlling behaviour, as well as breaching his restraining order
‘I told the police and on March 22 he was hauled back to Luton Magistrates Court for breaching the restraining order and remanded in custody,’ said Amiah.
In June, Pritchard pleaded guilty at Luton Crown Court to exercising coercive and controlling behaviour – entering his plea via live link to court from prison.
The judge sentenced Pritchard to 18 months behind bars, adding a further four months to run consecutively, for breaching the restraining order – taking his prison time to 22 months.
He was also given an indefinite restraining order, restricting his access to areas of Bedfordshire, in a bid to protect Amiah.
‘I pray to God he will stay away,’ she said. ‘I live near my salesman dad now. After two years of hell with Ricky, I want some peace and tranquillity.
‘I’ll never answer to any man like that again. I’ve got my whole life ahead of me and I know I had a lucky escape.’