By Lucy Waterlow PUBLISHED: 10:36 EST, 11 March 2013 | UPDATED: 05:26 EST, 12 March 2013 Survivor: After becoming free of a violent relationship, Nikki Howes has trained to be a counsellor so she can help others When Nikki Howes attended art college when she was 18 with a black eye, her alarmed friends asked her what had happened. 'I was mugged,' she told them - one of the many lies she told during a terrifying two-and-a-half-year period when she was in fact being attacked by her boyfriend. Nikki had met her abusive ex, David, when she started at university in Brighton and had no idea how violent he would become.
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Nikki Howes started a relationship with 'charming' David when she was 18 and had no idea of the monster he would become
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He would drink excessively and violently attack her
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Abuse would be prompted by smallest thing such as what clothes she wore
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He would always beg for forgiveness and she had nobody to turn to
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After more than two years, she eventually escaped after calling her father when she feared David would kill her
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Now she works as a counsellor to help others
After one particularly violent episode where he repeatedly bashed her head against the floor, @placeholder ended up in hospital.