'My husband was secretly a paedophile, he told me with one chilling word'
Amelia* was in the perfect marriage - or so she thought - until police came knocking and arrested her husband for possessing sexual images of children.
Amelia, 42, was under the impression that she knew her husband Adam* inside and out, having been together for seven years and married for four. He was kind, caring and romantic; the type to book her favourite restaurant for a surprise date night and spontaneously buy her flowers.
But he was living a double life. For the duration of their relationship, Adam had a dark and disturbing obsession with images and videos of children being sexually abused. He downloaded illegal content of under-18s on his laptop and phone, stored on hidden apps - and it wasn't until Amelia got 'The Knock' that his true identity came to light.
'The Knock' describes the moment police come to your door to arrest you for viewing indecent images of children (stock photo) (Getty Images)Reflecting on the man she once loved, Amelia told the Mirror: "He was the most wonderful person, he was kind, gentle and considerate. He worked for the local council. My family and friends couldn't have found a bad word to say about him."
They met at a mutual friend's wedding reception in 2010 and Amelia thought she'd found her dream man. "I saw my life with him," she said. "We married in 2013, had plans to start a family and I didn't want to do life with anybody else. He was very attentive and did thoughtful things. He was brilliant at organising time for us, like date nights, holidays, restaurants and flowers."
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Adam was never secretive of his phone or laptop and Amelia knew all of his passwords. "He was very open with me," she said. "I spent a lot of time looking at his phone - we had a cat that died and he had a lot of pictures on his phone. He was very comfortable with me scrolling. But he knew all along that I would never find anything."
Amelia later discovered that Adam had other camera rolls disguised on apps that were protected by complicated passwords she didn't know. "He was more than happy for me to look through his devices because he was calculating enough to find ways to keep everything a secret. It's horrifying," Amelia said.
His secrets finally surfaced when police turned up at their house in April 2017. "I remember it intensely. It was 6.30am on a weekday morning and there was the most horrendous, loud knock on the door," Amelia said.
"I knew it wasn't the postman. I started flapping around the bedroom in a panic and threw on a towel. I didn't register at the time that my husband was immensely calm. He got dressed in jeans and a T-shirt - he didn't just fling on a dressing gown." Amelia recalled Adam calmly opening the door to four plain-clothed police officers, three men and one woman.
"They came into our house and I knew instantly that it was police. I heard the words 'indecent images' and they told my husband to sit at the kitchen table," she said. "We'd had issues with a former lodger and I assumed it was about that."
Amelia started making cups of tea and handed her husband a mug. "He began circling the top of the mug and mouthed the word 'circles' to me. I knew exactly what that meant. I had friends who had volunteered for Circles." Circles of Support and Accountability aims to rehabilitate people who have committed sexual offences, and help them to not offend again.
"As soon as he mouthed that, I knew there and then that they weren't here for our old lodger. They were here for my husband," Amelia said. She asked to leave the room and went upstairs with the female officer. "I was numb and in a state of shock. Once he'd indicated that to me, I couldn't go back in there," she said.
Amelia remembered her husband Adam had once told her he didn't hug children - and it suddenly rang alarm bells (stock photo) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)The first thought that flashed into her mind was a strange memory she'd buried deep. "One time we'd spent the afternoon with a friend and her young daughter and I remember saying goodbye and hugging them. My husband hugged everyone but my friend's daughter," Amelia said.
"I said to him as we were leaving, 'Why didn't you give her a hug?' We'd been getting on well all afternoon. And he said, 'I just don't really hug children'. At the time, we didn't have many family or friends with kids, and I just said 'OK' and didn't think anything more of it.
"But as soon as I got The Knock, that comment was the first thing that came into my head. Out of seven years together, that is the only red flag." Amelia spent the next three hours waiting in the living room for her husband to be arrested. "Police searched our house from top to bottom and he was taken to the station," she said.
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"Later that evening, I got a phone call from the senior detective asking if I felt comfortable with him coming home. I said, 'Yes, I need to speak to him'. He didn't come home straight away, he turned up two hours later stinking of alcohol and cigarettes - he didn't even smoke."
When Adam finally arrived, he was full of excuses, but one thing was clear - he had been waiting for that knock for years. "He said he always knew that day was going to come - and it will for every person like him," Amelia said. She was staggered by the amount of excuses he came up with to justify his vile actions.
"He said, 'When I was younger, I was very shy and didn't have much success with girls'. He felt growing up that he never had those 'life experiences like cheeky snogs in the playground'," Amelia said. "The most ridiculous excuse was that he apparently had an interest in nudism. There is nothing in my eyes that justifies looking at indecent images of children in any shape or form."
Amelia's opinion of her husband "changed straight away" and she realised that her 'perfect' relationship was fake. "We never argued or even bickered and I thought that was bliss at the time. We got on so well and had so much in common," she said.
"Looking back, it was all an act from him. He didn't want to risk us getting into an argument because, in his deluded mind, he always thought that I would somehow piece two and two together and work out his secret."
Adam told Amelia that he had been viewing indecent images for years before he met her. "It was so shocking and awful. I remember taking my wedding ring off and telling him, 'I don't know who you are and I don't want to know who you are'," she said. "I told him that he had to be the most helpful person to the police because there needed to be justice for those children."
It made Amelia feel "sick to her stomach" that she had hoped to have kids with Adam. "We were trying hard to conceive and I was told that I wasn't able to have children. We'd attended groups about adoption to learn about the process. I count my lucky stars that the universe made sure we hadn't got to that stage yet," she said.
Amelia counts her lucky stars they weren't able to conceive and hadn't yet adopted (stock photo) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)Within eight weeks, Amelia and Adam were divorced and she has chosen not to see him since. She said the first few months were very dark and she hit an immediate low and couldn't see a way out. "It was a very isolating experience and a happy life seemed so far off. I am amazed that I made it through some weeks," she said.
It took everything she had to reach out to people for support. "It wasn't my crime or shame, but it was very difficult to speak to family and friends about," she said. The first people she confided in were the elderly couple who lived next door. "I remember running into the husband and he asked if Adam had hit me," Amelia said. "I burst into tears and said, 'I wish he had'."
"I told him Adam was looking at indecent images online. He said, 'You need to speak to my wife'. It turns out that the more people I told, the more families had their own stories of a very similar nature." Amelia slowly started rebuilding her life and sought support from the Lucy Faithfull Foundation (LFF) after spotting the child protection charity on a leaflet left by police.
Over time, conversations became more manageable and she started to believe in people again. Later that year, she developed a friendship with a man who became her fiancé. Now, she is in a healthy and happy relationship, engaged to be married and, after being told she couldn't conceive, has a three-year-old daughter.
"The person I loved the most totally destroyed my life, but I am proof that you can find happiness and positivity. To get here, you have to dig so deep and find faith in humans," Amelia said. "I am very aware that I am in a privileged position to say, 'Life is good', and the children my husband was looking at indecent images of may not get to say that. They cannot be forgotten."
Adam was convicted in 2019 and put on the sex offender register for five years. "I cannot stress how much devastation is caused when someone decides to view sexual images of children. If you take one thing from my story, know that help is available. Stop it now before it's too late," Amelia added.
A spokeswoman from LFF said: "We would recommend anyone who is in a similar position to Amelia to reach out for support. This can be to a loved one but also to our anonymous and confidential Stop It Now helpline, where our trained advisors can provide non-judgemental advice and support.
"We also have information on our Stop It Now website for family members, including our Family and Friends Forum where partners and family members of those who've been arrested for online child sexual abuse offenses can seek support from others in a similar situation. We also provide ongoing support for partners and family members of those arrested for online child sexual abuse offenses through our Inform programme."
*Amelia and Adam are not their real names. She requested to keep her and her ex-husband's names anonymous for publication.
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