For Emily and her husband, Matthew, everything changed when the police knocked on the door at 6.20am one morning. Could their family survive?
Emily, 35
In the 15 years I’ve been with my husband, Matthew, I never imagined opening the front door to the police. As far as I was concerned, we had an ordinary marriage – we met at university, went travelling after graduation and returned home to build our careers. I trained in safeguarding, while he studied to be an engineer. I thought we were so lucky. Ours was a comfortable, middle-class life in an affluent English market town in the south – we enjoyed holidays and had a busy social life, with lots of friends. I’m a bit of an introvert, but my husband’s more popular – the sort who goes out of his way to help other people who might be struggling.
