After 18 years in an abusive relationship, Rachel was shot and severely injured by her violent partner in 2011. He then committed suicide, as did her 16-year-old son Jack, shortly after the attack.

Rachel spent several weeks in hospital and now lives with life altering injuries. She is founder of SUTDA (Stand Up to Domestic Abuse), Ambassador for Locality Solutions, and Patron for WCID – What Can I Do. She always won a St David’s Humanitarian Award in 2020. In 2019 she held Wales first survivor led domestic abuse conference, which was opened by The First Minister. The event was attended by over 300 delegates, which were made up of survivors, MP’s, Assembly Members, Chief Constables, Police & Crime Commissioners, former VC, Dame Vera Baird, DA Commissioner Nicole Jacobs and many more!

Rachel campaigns tirelessly and is committed to ending domestic abuse. She has 5 successful petitions on Change.org with a combined million signatures.  One of her campaigns and surveys went to help towards making non-fatal strangulation a specific crime.

Now a qualified IDVA, Rachel also runs online an online awareness Facebook page called Stand Up to Domestic Abuse, and is also an Author – ‘The Devil at Home’ (Penguin Random House)

Rachel aims to highlight the severity of domestic abuse and show that it is everyone’s business. She expresses, "Domestic abuse can happen to anyone, it has no respecter of age, race, class, and gender. We owe it to the next generation to educate them on all the different facets of abuse. Abuse must be stamped out as we owe it to our children and grandchildren. Everyone is entitled to live fear free from this pandemic. My message is bigger than my mess and I want to show victims and survivors that there is life after abuse."