Until I Kill You review (showing on ITV/ITVx) by Eli Regan

Anna Maxwell Martin’s performance on our TV screens in the new ITV drama ‘Until I Kill You’ is compelling, utterly magnetic. 

She plays spiky and blunt Delia Balmer, a real-life nurse who almost got killed by her boyfriend, murderer John Sweeney (played by Shaun Evans) in 1994 and was tied to her bed for four days and repeatedly raped.

It starts off innocently enough and in fact it is Delia, who is rude to John Sweeney after he accidentally spills tea on her floor. She waits for him at the bar they met and gives him a letter of apology. That’s a real sliding doors moment. 

The relationship takes off, he moves in with her, he sands her door as it’s creaking and makes a bed for them both – gestures that do not seem unreasonable at the beginning of a relationship.  They spend Christmas in Liverpool with his parents. The red flags start appearing. He’s curt with her when she talks to his Mum ‘she doesn’t want your life story’, tells her not to dance ‘as she’s making a show of herself’. A woman sees her in the toilets at his local and says ‘you with John Sweeney? Hope you have better luck than his wife’. 

He tries to strangle her in the night and pretends to be asleep. She tells her friend at work that she’s thinking of leaving him.

When she decides to, he won’t leave the house and tells her to finish eating the chilli first and if she still wants to chuck him out, he’ll leave.

When she asks him to leave before he’s finished his meal, he asks her if he can draw her. He likes to draw the women he’s been with, so she complies and sits in a chair. When he shows her the picture, it’s an awful depiction of her with devil horns.

This is the beginning of her being hostage in her own home and this is where the first episode ends, by John creepily telling Delia he murdered Melissa, the woman in some of his other drawings. 

At Manchester Women’s Aid, we deal with cases of coercive control, extreme threats of killing and horrific violence. 

A MARAC, or multi-agency risk assessment conference, is a meeting where information is shared on the highest risk domestic abuse cases between various agencies: police, probation, health, child protection, housing practitioners, and Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs) at charities, such as ours. 

The risks that Delia encountered, with John being released on bail, so that he can attack her brutally reflect her real life and so many others. 

As Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, said, “Prisoners convicted of these offences (threats to kill and actual bodily harm) may still qualify for early release.”, reflecting on the scheme which saw 1700 prisoners granted early release from prison, due to overcrowding.

Failure to protect women from perpetrators remains a constant in the news with often tragic consequences. 

This drama does much to show the dangers in performances that are measured, chilling and unfold as naturally as a chance meeting in a bar, a bit of DIY around the house, a shared Christmas and horrendous violence almost resulting in death. 

It also highlights areas of support that are not ideal as Delia is offered accommodation at a King’s Cross Hostel which she is less than thrilled about as she realises that will come with its own set of problems: an unstable environment due to people being housed in close proximity with their own set of problems: substance misuse, drinking, etc. 

An important representation of the very real dangers women face.

And a reminder that even do we have Clare’s Law (named after Clare Wood who was strangled and set on fire by her partner) which is a scheme by which people can ask police if they suspect a partner has domestic abuse convictions, that the system isn’t working.

Earlier this year, a BBC investigation found that some people who asked for a background check on their partner have been waiting hundreds of days for a response. The police are meant to respond within 28 days.

The drama also illustrates the brutal judicial system and how dehumanising Delia finds the process which is something that we repeatedly hear at Manchester Women's Aid. 

Please call us on 0161 660 7999 if you’re experiencing domestic abuse and start a conversation about how we could help. 

If you’re in immediate danger, please always dial 999.