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Daniel* wasn’t my usual type. I tended to go for men who were the life and the soul of the party – like me. He was quieter and more stand-offish. It wasn’t a case of instant sexual attraction, either, but there was something between us; I felt like he understood me on a deep level.
It was the summer out of lockdown and I was struggling to come to terms with the break-up of my long-term relationship. Daniel was the housemate of one of my friends, and over time he became a bit of a shoulder to cry on. It felt like we were on the same page, and he was so positive that it was contagious. He liked the nicer things in life. It was the little gestures; he would always be at the station to meet me after work. He would surprise me with designer shoes and we went out to dinner at swanky restaurants. Money never felt like an object.
I didn’t question where his wealth came from – I knew he had a building construction company and a few fingers in different pies. Soon, however, things didn’t seem to add up. His behaviour seemed more erratic. He was on edge. One day I spoke to him over the phone and he sounded panicked. He was saying something had gone wrong, but didn’t want to go into specifics. When he got home, it all seemed quite serious, and he was constantly looking out of the window. But I couldn’t get him to open up.
Eventually his secrecy took a toll on me. I was working for a health club in Chelsea and I could barely do my job after a while – I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in ages. It got to the point where I cracked. “Look, Dan,” I told him. “If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’m leaving you.” He didn’t give me what I wanted, but did surprise me with a weekend getaway in Oxford. I forgot all about our problems until we were in the middle of nowhere, driving through the countryside around midnight, when we could suddenly hear a transmitter in the car. “What the hell was that?” I said. It was immediately obvious that the car had been bugged. We both looked stunned and shocked – he put his finger over his mouth to say “shush”. Then he took my face and whispered in my ear that he’d tell me later but I had nothing to worry about. He told me he loved me lots and nothing ever bad would happen to me.
As weird as it sounds, it was the first time I’d felt reassured in weeks. The rest of the 45-minute car journey was pretty strange to say the least – I just held it together and put on the radio. We got to an amazing hotel in the Cotswolds and as we walked into the bedroom, I said: “What the hell is going on, Dan?”
He poured himself a whisky on the rocks from the mini-bar. He was shaking slightly. We were sitting apart on this huge four-poster bed with crisp sheets in a room with beautiful views across a lake – but everything felt cold, dark and slightly eerie. My heart was pounding and I felt sick. He said he really didn’t want to lose me – but he had something to tell me. He wanted to be honest from the start, but he liked me so much that he also wanted to protect me. He was an armed robber.
It all happened so fast. I was surrounded by police. I pulled the covers up to my chin in fear – they let me know Daniel had been arrested and that they had a warrant to search the premises
I went white as a sheet. I had no feelings. I was numb. My only response was “What?” At this point, I was in shock. He told me everything. He went into the bank and did the robbery with two other people – one was the look-out guy. He went up to the counter and demanded the cash. He had a gun. He wore a balaclava. He told me it wasn’t the first time he’d done an armed robbery – but that he didn’t hurt anyone and he never would. It was all going well until on the way out, when he lost his glove. His gut told him he should go back for it so he couldn’t be traced by his DNA, but one of his accomplices pulled him into their waiting vehicle.
I found out I was pregnant the week after he broke the news about the bank raid, and it only made our bond stronger. He had laid his cards on the table – and the weird thing was it never made me change how I felt about him. I said to him, “What’s going to happen? Are you going to get caught?” “Right now, who knows,” he replied. The possibilities were running through my mind – would he be looking at five years? 10 years? 20?
He told me he had stopped doing armed raids, but his friend who owed a lot of money had begged him to help. I believed him when he said he wouldn’t do it again. It all came to a head a few days later, as I was lying in bed in his house – he was out and I had a headache. I’d just got to sleep when I heard the most terrifying noise, like a door bursting open. It all happened so fast. I was surrounded by police. I pulled the covers up to my chin in fear – they let me know Daniel had been arrested and that they had a warrant to search the premises. They treated me nicely and gave me a few seconds to put some clothes on while they waited outside the door.
It was chaos: undercover police were swarming the property. They took the small amount of cash he had on the bedside, some log books for cars, and a laptop. I asked them: “Where is he?” They couldn’t tell me anything and told me to wait for him to call me. The next day, he rang me from a number I didn’t recognise, asking if I was OK. He was in a remand centre in London. He’d been tracked down by undercover police when he was visiting his mum in north London.
In 2023 he was sentenced to 11 years in jail, and now we’re dating in a prison canteen. It’s a two-hour visit over a table, eating chicken nuggets, crisps, pick ‘n’ mix, and Twixes. I try to look nice and dress up, even though he’s stuck in a grey tracksuit. There’s a family day where we get photos taken with our little girl. Daniel’s currently working his way to a Category D prison, which should hopefully mean he’d be put on day release – but that might not be for quite a few years.
I’ve told my family and a lot of friends – who haven’t got a clue about his criminal life – that me and Daniel have just split up. It’s far easier than explaining the truth. My best friend asks me what I’ll tell my daughter when she’s older. “I don’t know,” I tell her. “I’m taking it a day at a time.”
*Names have been changed
