Mother woke up to find her partner of 20 years raping her and learnt he filmed his attacks

A mother has revealed her horror at learning her partner of 20 years had recorded hundreds of videos of himself raping her in her sleep.  

Deborah Hinkley, 41, from North Wales, was repeatedly sexually assaulted by her partner Curtis Mackenzie, 46, in attacks that he filmed and stored on a USB device.

‘He was seen lifting my eyelid while smirking, to show how unresponsive I was,’ she recalled of the videos. ‘When I had to identify myself in them, it felt like my was identifying my own dead body.’ 

Police discovered 1,300 videos of Mackenzie assaulting Ms Hinkley on the sofa, taken over several years. 

Deborah Hinkley, pictured, woke one night to find her husband raping her while they were on holiday in Amsterdam. Police later found 1,300 videos he had filmed of his assaults

Mackenzie was jailed for 12 years and eight months in November last year after being convicted of 12 counts of rape and nine counts of sexual assault.

Ms Hinkley, who shares three children with Mackenzie and has a daughter from a previous relationship, first discovered one of the videos in 2012, when she was flicking through Mackenzie’s phone in search of photos of their daughters. 

She explained: ‘Over the years, Curtis and I had a date night every Friday. The girls would go to their grandparents, and we’d go out for dinner and drinks.

‘Usually, I’d have quite a lot to drink, so when we got home, I’d often pass out on the sofa.’

Recalling the moment she found the video, she added: ‘I realised he’d raped me. I assumed it after one of our date nights.’

The couple briefly split up in 2012 when Deborah found a video on Curtis’s phone of him raping her, but just weeks later she discovered she was pregnant with their youngest child

Curtis and Deborah, who were together for 20 years, share two daughters and a son. Deborah has an older daughter from a previous relationship

Ms Hinckley and Mackenzie first met as friends at college in 1999. Deborah, then aged 18, was in a relationship and pregnant.

A year after giving birth to her eldest daughter, Deborah split from her partner and grew closer to Mackenzie. 

‘By the end of that year, we were a couple,’ Deborah recalled. The couple moved in together in April 2001 and Mackenzie embraced the role of stepfather to her daughter. 

The couple built a family together and had two daughters of their own by 2009.

But in 2012 Ms Hinckley opened up Mackenzie’s phone, looking for a photo of their girls, and was horrified to find a video he had made of himself raping her while she was asleep.

Deborah (right in Amsterdam) eventually took Curtis back six months after their son was born when he swore to her he had not knowingly raped her in her sleep

Deborah (pictured with the couple’s second daughter in 2009) said she would often fall asleep on the sofa after her Friday night dates with Curtis

The mother-of-four said she ‘felt sick’ at seeing the video and confronted Mackenzie about it, to which he responded he hasn’t realised she was asleep at the time. 

Not buying his excuse, Ms Hinckley kicked her partner out of the family home – but weeks later she realised she was pregnant with their third child.

Throughout the pregnancy Mackenzie begged her to take him back but she refused. Then, six months after she gave birth to their son in May 2013, she decided to give him another chance.  

‘I didn’t want to break up the family and Curtis convinced me it was an honest mistake and he truly thought I was awake,’ she said. ‘For several years things were great again.’

But four years later, her concerns began to creep back in.

‘In the night I’d often wake up to Curtis jumping off me,’ Deborah recalled. ‘He said he was looking for a phone charger and always had an excuse. I had a horrible feeling.’

Deborah said she ‘felt sick’ after waking up during a trip to Amsterdam and finding Curtis, pictured together, on top of her, raping her in her sleep

One night, during a holiday in Amsterdam in 2019, Deborah woke up to find Mackenzie raping her. 

‘I was hysterical. He just shrugged,’ she said. ‘That was my breaking point.’

When they returned home she ended her relationship with Mackenzie and reported him to police in October 2020.  

After police raided Mackenzie’s home, they found a USB stick which, when inspected, was found to contain 1,300 videos of him raping Deborah on the sofa over several years.

In November 2021, Curtis Mackenzie, pleaded guilty to 12 counts of rape and 9 counts of sexual assault against Deborah. He was jailed for 12 years and eight months at Cardiff Crown Court.

Deborah added: ‘His sentence wasn’t long enough. I still feel so violated. I was with Curtis for nearly 20 years and we had a family. How could he do this to me?’

She added: ‘I dread telling our kids.’