A brave mum who feared her abusive ex-boyfriend would kill her, wrote his name in her own blood so the police would be able to catch him if she died. Emmie Dalton, 29, met Jonathan Hunt, 34, on a dating app, Tinder in January 2020, and when Covid struck he moved in with her and her two children. But when Emmie, a master’s student, started studying for an English literature degree, he complained she wasn’t paying him enough attention. By January 2021 Hunt became secretive with his phone and she discovered he had been messaging and flirting with multiple other women.
The pair split up in October 2021, though they remained friends but Hunt attacked Emmie after she invited him to her mum’s 50th birthday party in July 2022. Emmie has now spoken out about her ordeal after Hunt was jailed for assault.
She said: ‘Johnny’s brutal attack left me scarred for life and I’ll need corrective surgery on my nose in the future. But I’m a survivor and finally rid of him.
‘On the day of the party, Johnny was charming and on his best behavior, but after everyone left and I started clearing up, he squared up to me in the kitchen, demanding to know how much I’d had to drink.
‘His eyes glazed over when I told him I’d only had a few.’
Suddenly, Hunt punched Emmie hard in the face, dislocating her nose, before continuing to hit her.
‘A metallic taste filled my nostrils and I was drenched in blood,’ Emmie said.
‘Terrified he’d kill me, I ducked under his arm and raced upstairs into my bedroom, locking the door behind me.
‘I thought he’d kill me and get away with it.’
Determined not to let him escape justice, Emmie covered her finger in her own blood and wrote ‘John’ on her bedroom wall. As Hunt entered her bedroom, she escaped down the stairs and out onto the street where he caught up with her and shoved her face first into the pavement. Emmie blacked out, and when she got consciousness, Hunt had vanished.
She said: ‘I managed to drag myself home and phone a friend, who took me back to hers. I was in too much pain to call the police and just went to bed.’ The next day, Emmie went home with her friend and found Hunt asleep in her bed. She called the police and Hunt was arrested. Later that morning, Emmie attended Chesterfield Royal Hospital where she was treated for severe bruising and a dislocated nose and the consultant told her she was lucky as she could have lost her left eye. In February 2023, Jonathan Hunt admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm, and last August he was jailed for two years and 11 months at Derby Crown Court. The judge detailed his previous convictions for 28 offenses, including convictions that arose from ‘domestic context’.
Emmie says: ‘His sentence was appalling for what he did to me. He could’ve killed me.
‘Now there’s still blood on my wall, so I’ve swapped rooms. But it’s a reminder that I didn’t let that animal get the last word.’