D.elia Balmer lies on her bed in a small, sparsely furnished apartment. He is now in his seventies, but the camera shows him reliving a painful memory from almost 40 years ago. “He tied my ankles,” she says, leaning over the duvet into a star shape. “He held my hands; First he tied this one at the top” – he pointed to his left arm – “And then he tied the other one at the top. “I struggled at first, but I learned it was best not to try because he fixed it so the rope would get tighter and tighter.”

The bed she lies on is the same bed that John Patrick Sweeney prepared for her, the same bed they shared when they lived together years ago after they began a relationship. This is the same bed where Sweeney confined her and raped her repeatedly over the course of a week before taking her hostage in 1994.

In that bed, she learned who her boyfriend really was: a serial killer who preyed on women. “He threatened to cut my tongue off if I screamed,” says Delia. He lay silent and naked as he made a chilling confession that he killed his ex-girlfriend Melissa Halstead, then cut her up and dumped her body in an Amsterdam canal.

Last week, ITV viewers watched Delia’s heartbreaking ordeal retold in a stunning four-part drama. Until It Kills You In which Anna Maxwell Martin plays the role of Delia with extraordinary effect.

Her critically acclaimed portrayal of Delia reveals an independent and socially awkward woman whose life’s goal seems to be the pursuit of freedom, but who later becomes prey to extreme male violence.

Following Maxwell Martin’s powerful performance and the surprising incompetence of the police involved in her case, viewers were left in shock and wondering what happened to the real Delia.

A follow-up documentary on ITV – Till It Kills You: The True Story – finds a way to answer this question. In the 45-minute programme, Delia, who currently lives in London, speaks candidly to the camera, giving her side of what really happened and what her life has been like since then.

“He’s an amazing person,” says series producer Iwan Roberts, who spent a year making the film. They went to the bar in Camden for a beer, he says, where he told “fabulous anecdotes about traveling the world” and added: “He was a blast to talk to.

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Maxwell Martin portrays Delia as a difficult and often grumpy loner, while also showing us her vulnerability. Her character brings to life the complexities around victimization, especially when it comes to male violence.

“I think he was a very different person to a lot of people,” Roberts continues. In a scene that will shock some viewers, Delia shows the filmmakers the massage table Sweeney made and points to his signature in black marker underneath. “One of the reasons she keeps all the furniture Sweeney made for her is because she doesn’t see objects like we do. “He wants to spend his money on travel, so it doesn’t bother him.”

“After Sweeney attacked her, she says she wished she were dead,” Roberts says. Today, Delia says she died that night, although she wasn’t killed, but Roberts adds: “I’m guessing she wouldn’t say that, but she still had a great passion for life.”

Delia’s story began when she moved to London to work as an agency nurse, although she spent most of her childhood in Canada. He met Sweeney by chance in a bar. He was a carpenter by profession; tall, broad, dark-haired and with long hair. Like Delia, he valued freedom and exploration. The couple formed a relationship that was happy for a while.

The harassment began quietly; Comments were made about the short skirt she wore and whether men were looking at her. In the film, Delia explains that she knew she had to leave. As in many cases of domestic violence and as highlighted IndependentThis was the most dangerous point of ‘s ongoing campaign with Refuge.

Delia asked Sweeney to leave but he returned and threatened her with a gun and knife, beginning a week-long prison sentence. Surprisingly, she managed to convince him to let her go, spending the next few months afraid that he would return or take revenge if she told the police.

He found grisly drawings that Sweeney had kept in his portfolio: women with missing heads and hands, miniature carpenters dismembering female bodies. When a counseling center he eventually went to for help called the police, he showed them to investigators as proof he was the killer. They denied his claims and Sweeney was nowhere to be found.

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Sweeney inevitably returned. After he attacked Delia again at her home, a friend called the police, sensing something was wrong when Delia didn’t show up at the bar. He was eventually arrested but surprisingly released on bail due to Christmas.

On December 22, Sweeney attacked Delia outside her home as she returned from work. He was armed with an ax and knife. Sitting on the steps where she was attacked years ago, Delia explains matter-of-factly to the camera: “He pulls out the axe, hits me on the side of my head.”

He describes how he raised his arm to protect himself after it was broken by another blow. He finally dropped the ax and raised the blade, stabbing her in the thigh before thrusting into her chest.

Sweeney interrupted a concerned neighbor; It was a simple act that saved Delia’s life, but she had insisted for decades that, in her opinion, he had killed her that day. He was hospitalized for months and talks about “this body” throughout the documentary, saying that even today he cannot recognize himself in the mirror and that he still struggles with depression and anxiety.

It took the police almost a decade to bring the escaped Sweeney to justice, and Delia was repeatedly let down by the law in almost every case. It’s hard to watch scenes where male police officers don’t take her seriously or where she screams in court when she first gives evidence at trial. Deeply traumatizing, this film is a frank indictment of how women and their bodies are routinely and casually ignored by violent men and often by the systems meant to protect them. Even though years have passed, that anger continues.

“He doesn’t let people see his vulnerability,” Roberts says. He’s a very proud person and doesn’t want to show that emotion or whatever he’s carrying. Sometimes he can be grumpy or seem grumpy.” But he says this is the result of a life beset and defined by ordeal, which he claims “will not accept” what happened to him.

Sweeney was eventually convicted of the attempted murder of Delia and, much later, of the murder of two other women (Melissa Halstead and Paula Fields), and became known as the “scalper hunter”.

In the documentary, Delia’s brother Stewart describes a frightening encounter with Sweeney that prevented the title from happening. “I asked him, have you ever killed anyone? “I don’t know why I asked that, he just had this feeling,” says Stewart. “He didn’t answer yes or no. He said, ‘White men taught the Indians how to scalp.’ It’s really weird.”

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After the law failed Delia once again by offering Sweeney the option of parole after serving only nine years, his subsequent convictions meant his sentence was increased to life imprisonment. He was convicted in 2011 while serving a life sentence at Gartree Prison in Leicestershire for the attempted murder of Delia and will never be released.

Today, Delia continues her life as best she can. A dancer, “ballet is really important to her,” explains Roberts, “and she still likes to travel to India and Africa. She also visits her brother Stewart in America once a year.” She now works as a therapeutic masseuse after gaining a degree from the University of Westminster in the early 2000s. He wrote a book in 2017: Living with a Serial Killer Roberts says there’s something he wants to see done about his experiences that form the basis of the drama.

It was very important to tell his story. He needed to be heard. And now her incredible fortitude and strength in the face of horror is broadcast for all to see.

Yet he bears the scars of Sweeney’s brutal attack. But Delia and the producers of the ITV series hope that her courage in telling her life story will give us all a deeper understanding of the suffering of survivors and highlight a system that has repeatedly failed women like Delia.

Till I Kill You: The True Story is on ITV1 tonight (November 7) at 21.00. Till I Kill You is available to watch on ITVX

Please donate now To the Brick by Brick campaign launched by The Independent and charity Refuge to help raise £300,000 to create a safe space for women where they can escape domestic violence, rebuild their lives and build a new future. To donate £15 text BRICK to 70560.

The National Domestic Abuse Helpline offers support to women on 0808 2000 247 or you can visit: Asylum website. There is a dedicated men’s advice line on 0808 8010 327.