Watching my son, Jakub, known as Kuba, dance around, I grinned. He always put a smile on my face. I’d moved from Poland to England with my sons Lukasz*, then 10, Pawel*, then eight and Kuba, then six, after striking up a relationship with a man named Suleman, 35, who I’d met online in 2012. A year later, I’d fallen pregnant. And in time, I’d given birth to another son, Filip*. He was Suleman’s first child, and he was a proud dad.
But with four children, money was tight. Suleman was at university studying IT, and had a part-time job delivering takeaways. I had to look after the children by myself. One day in 2015, when our baby was seven months old, Suleman shouted at Kuba and then kicked him.…
