Lover, Liar, Predator review – forget Adolescence … this horrifying film should be shown in every school | Television

Last year I began a review of the BBC documentary To Catch a Stalker with the words “Welcome to part 86,747,398,464 of the continuing cataloguing via television documentary of the apparently infinite series Ways in Which Largely Men Terrorise Largely Women and Prevent Countless Millions of Them from Living Their Lives in Freedom and Contentment.” Welcome now to part 86,747,398,465 (providing, that is, we limit ourselves only to products from the BBC. To include Netflix’s contributions could break calculators.)

Lover, Liar, Predator tells the stories of several women who were coerced, abused and raped by a man called Aaron Swan over his decades-long career. He was 17 when he approached Natalie at a party. She was 17 too but, as a devout Christian with a very protected upbringing, effectively younger and highly vulnerable to his charms. He put pressure on her to give up her virginity. She got pregnant and they married. He was “demeaning and unkind” to her, insulting her looks, claiming to be in love with his ex and subjecting her to violent, unwanted sex (“I endured whatever was required … I thought that’s what sex was”) for years.

By 2009 he had moved on to Jenni, whom he started grooming on Facebook when she was 16. He was 24. Her mother tried to put an end to the relationship and eventually involved the police, who told her and Jenni that he had an ex-wife and was a registered sex offender since his conviction for possession of child sexual abuse images five years previously. However, the teenager was convinced by his protestations of innocence and moved in with him. They married, though he was serially unfaithful. She was soon pregnant and Natalie’s experience repeated itself in another home, with the added horror that Swan raped Jenni’s best friend, Shannon, when she stayed over after a night out.

He then met 18-year-old Robyn at work and the pattern repeated. His abusive behaviours escalated as time went on and he used various threats – from suicide to “making your life a living hell” – to deter his victims’ occasional attempts to get help. It wasn’t until 2024 that Swan was convicted of six charges, including rape, domestic abuse and sexual assault.

This was in large part due to the women’s solidarity. They had become aware of each other’s existence, and helped one another see Swan’s true colours. As his terrorism of Jenni increased, she got back in touch with Shannon to apologise for believing Swan when he said their sex was consensual. The women went to the local police station and reported their rapes by him together.

Meanwhile, Swan’s sister enrolled Robyn on a 12-week course for women who suspected they were in abusive relationships. At the end, Robyn discovered that the woman who had created the course was Natalie, Swan’s ex-wife. His sister had told her how desperately worried she was about his new girlfriend, and Natalie suggested this as a way of showing her the truth.

All together, their testimonies worked: Swan was ordered to serve a minimum of six years’ imprisonment, and his name was added to the sex offenders’ register indefinitely with non-harassment orders granted for all parties involved.

Documentaries like this are sometime criticised for simply logging the problem, rather than addressing it and proffering solutions. But they do raise awareness (never mind Adolescence – I would put a package of these films together and send one to every school in the country), and perhaps prompt those lacking in experience and consequently sympathy to imagine possible answers to that vexed question: “Why don’t they just leave?” To imagine being scared in your own home, all the time. To imagine not knowing from one second to the next when your partner is going to “turn”. To imagine having your self-esteem chipped away over years by someone who brutalises you inside and out. To imagine having no safe space.

All the women describe the impossibility of leaving a man who had been carefully stripping them, more or less since childhood, of the psychological and practical wherewithal to do so. Add the failures of police to take seriously physical violence, let alone the more intangible forms of coercing and controlling a victim, and the inability of the criminal justice system to put effective curbs on perpetrators’ behaviour if and when it does come to their attention, and you have a world that could hardly be more designed for predators. See you for Part 86,747,398,466. Won’t be long.

Lover, Liar, Predator aired on BBC Two and is on iPlayer now.

In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org.