During the course of her marriage, Amina was unexpectedly contacted by Ghengis. She had not changed her number and this was a man she was deeply in love with and had tried to build a future with albeit unsuccessfully. They embarked upon an affair in September 2019 and she discovered she was pregnant with his child on 25 December 2019.

As a result of the pregnancy she had a decision to make. Amina had three options. She could either leave her husband and be with Ghengis officially or she could have her baby and pass it off as her husbands. The final option was drastic and something she struggled with internally as she had always wanted to be a mum from a young age. She could abort the child she wanted so badly even though it was conceived out of love rather than duty.

Her best friend tried to talk her out of the abortion but her mind was set. It was because although she loved Ghengis, she was unsure if he would accept her children. She was also concerned her family would never forgive her and felt Ghengis wouldn’t fit in with her family. He was so different.

She went to have her abortion and took her best friend with her. Ghengis also went to the abortion clinic but he was late because his car wouldn’t start. She then paid for him to arrive in an uber because he wanted to be there for her through the procedure. Although her procedure meant she was going to be taking a pill. When he arrived at the clinic the receptionist wouldn’t let him in as she believed he was there to prevent Amina from having an abortion. Ghengis got aggressive with her friend over the phone and then walked out so Amina had to go after him after her initial meeting with the nurse. He was very rude to her and quite aggressive. In the waiting room he behaved like a child wanting to play games on her phone but when her battery died he turned to her friend to use her phone. She declined to give it to him.

After the abortion, Amina was obviously quite emotional and Ghengis verbally abused her. Her friend who wants to remain anonymous has said ‘he kept calling her ‘A Slag and Baby Killer’ even though she had made sure he was at the clinic and was driving him back home after the procedure. I was shocked at the vehemence in his voice’.

After the abortion Ghengis was once again in trouble with the law. Unfortunately we’re unable to share the details of his alleged crime however as a result he decided that it was better to avoid arrest and subsequently he declined to go home and instead stayed in his car and various cheap hotels. He didn’t stay in the same one and kept moving around to prevent himself being arrested. Amina was aware he was moving to different hotels but didn’t know the reason for this. He informed her his mum had kicked him out after a fight with one of his brothers and so Amina was ordering food for him. He was later arrested and sent to HMP Cardiff as he was named by the victim as the perpetrator. Unfortunately, after a few weeks the victim recanted and as a result, Ghengis was acquitted of all charges as his victim claimed he didn’t know what he was saying at the time he accused him because he was heavily medicated.

Just before April 2020, Amina’s eldest child wanted to go and stay with her maternal grandparents. This was a regular occurrence where she would often have sleepover at ‘nani’s’. After a day Amina and her youngest also went to stay at her parents’ home. They spent two or three days at Amina’s parents and when it was time to leave, the eldest grandchild wanted to spend another night at nani’s. Amina allowed this to happen and went back to the flat she shared with her husband.

Unfortunately, Amina’s husband wasn’t happy about his eldest spending more time at her grandparents and told Amina she needed to bring her eldest back, or she could get out and not come back. This finally gave her a reason to leave, and she officially moved in with her parents and both children in March.

During this time her family didn’t tell her she needed to go back to her husband’s home, and they actually allowed her some freedoms. She would spend the nights speaking to Ghengis on the phone until 2am and then she would sleep. On one of these nights her mother caught her speaking to Ghengis on the phone. She wasn’t aware it was Ghengis but started to tell her off and accuse her of all sorts. As a result, Amina left her maternal home in the middle of the night and drove to Ghengis’ home.

She let her family know she was safe and spoke to her best friend to let her know she had taken the plunge. Unfortunately, this was a decision that she didn’t really make for herself but rather one that was forced upon her due to the circumstance and situation at the time.

Her best friend knew her phone was messed up, so they struggled to maintain contact although Amina did call her once for a quick catchup. After a few weeks of not hearing from her, Amina’s best friend stopped sending messages and calling her because it was evident, she no longer had a working phone. She didn’t suspect the cause of this.

Her friend was not used to not hearing from her. They had been very close for almost 15 years which was half their lives. However, they had known each other ever since Primary School. Her friend was fed up with not hearing from her and being unable to share her own problems with her. So, she contacted Ghengis whose number Amina had given her for emergencies.

In August 2020, Ghengis wouldn’t open her WhatsApp messages for days after she sent them, and when he eventually did, he wouldn’t respond to her. This caused her some concern but more than anything it annoyed her to see him changing his WhatsApp profile picture in excess of 4 times over a two-day period but not respond to her. After all she wasn’t interested in speaking with him but wanted to make sure Amina was ok mentally as she had never been away from her children for a long period. She finally sent him another message saying, ‘If you can change your profile picture so often… you can let me know if Amina is ok’. He responded in the early hours of the morning apologising and promising Amina would be in touch tomorrow.

Amina didn’t get in touch. Her friend waited and didn’t reach out again. When she met with her another friend in October, just before the third lockdown was enforced she explained the situation. At that point it was reaching two months since she was advised Amina would be in touch and she just didn’t know what to do. Her and her friend made light of the situation to cheer her up.

When her best friend turned 30 in November she was very surprised not to get even a happy birthday message from Amina. Amina was almost always the first person to wish her a happy birthday over the last 15 years. Her friend had to go and collect her birthday cake from an area where the bus ran through the main road of her current partners area, she knew the street name but not the door number so she decided against visiting as it was a really long road and lockdown had already started.

She spoke to a different friend in December 2020 and was explaining how she couldn’t get in touch with her in any way and was at the point where she wanted to contact police and request a welfare check for her friend. Unfortunately, she only had her friends husband’s first name and wasn’t sure if he would be the only person with that name on the street. During this conversation with her friend, she remembered that Amina had actually provided her with her partners landline number. She finally had a way to speak to her without her partner being included!

The very next day she contacted Amina on the landline number. Amina’s partners mother picked up and advised Amina wasn’t available and wanted to know where she had gotten the house number.

‘I told them Amina had given it to me in case of emergency before she even left her husband’.

Finally her partner came on the phone and confirmed Amina wasn’t available but that she would call back.

‘She did call the next day but I missed the call due to work. When I tried to call her back 30 minutes later I struggled to get in touch. A few weeks later, in January 2021, I messaged the number she had contacted me from and was shocked to receive a private call. I was even more shocked I managed to pick it up as my phone automatically declines private calls but this time it let it through.’

We had a brief conversation. I managed to ask if she was happy, if she had seen or spoken to the kids and then I started updating her about my life. She had informed me I was on loudspeaker as she was making food for Ghengis. She also informed me her divorce had come through and her and Ghengis were now married and she was happy. During the course of the conversation Ghengis came on the phone and was very aggressive and swearing.

‘He was unhappy because I’d mentioned a guy I was previously seeing and telling Amina that he had caught Covid. At that point Ghengis took over the call and was very rude. He also started bad mouthing Amina and accusing her of all sorts of things. He informed me she had lied about him being the foetus’ father. I asked why she would do that, I didn’t believe it because we knew everything about each other’s crazy moments. We were each other’s person and that’s something she would have told me. He said it was because she was trying to prove herself to him. I wouldn’t have believed him at all but he used the Islamic Shahada as a way to prove his words. As a Muslim those words are very, very important to us. If anyone said them we would have to believe what we’re being told and I’d never been in a position where anyone had used the Shahada before to prove themselves.’

I spoke to Amina after that and I asked why she lied. She responded with ‘Mental problems’. This was something that really hurt me as she knew I was suffering with depression for a number of years and I’d never lied to her. So, I made an excuse to end the call and decided I wouldn’t contact her again as this wasn’t something that I was willing to put up with.