As she cradled the newborn baby boy close to her chest, an argument was brewing.
Although the little boy was just days old, Mark Duthie could simply not stand to see another male close to the breasts of his girlfriend.
It was a small part of a catalogue of abuse that involved numerous women and which ultimately saw the 34-year-old jailed for nine years last May.
For Debbie Carnegie, hearing the verdict was a bittersweet moment, for coronavirus restrictions meant she could not attend court in person to see the look on Duthie’s face when he was sentenced.
“The jury’s guilty decision was unanimous for the charges against me,” she said.
“It’s a shame because it was during the Covid lockdown. All of us women wanted to go down together and be there united.
“We wanted to see the look on his face – to see that face trip like he made our faces trip almost every day.
“We couldn’t get that but I was over the moon, especially when I found out he got nine years.”
‘I needed justice’
34-year-old Debbie fell into a relationship with Duthie when she was just a teenager.
Despite the relationship being marked by controlling behaviour, she only found the strength to leave when he raped her in Forfar in 2003.
Bravely waiving her right to anonymity, Debbie says she wants schoolchildren to be taught how to recognise abusive behaviour to prevent them falling prey to abusers – or even becoming abusers themselves.
The mother-of-three said the entire relationship, which lasted around a year, has cast a long shadow over her life, affecting her relationships with men and with her children.
“I don’t know why I stayed so long. I didn’t stew on what happened between me and Mark for years – I just tried to put it to the back of my mind.
“But the last two years have been hard. I had to go to court. I needed justice.”
Vulnerable teenager
Debbie was just 15 when she met Duthie, who was just four days older than her.
Within a short space of time he had alienated her from her friends and family and shortly after she turned 16 she moved in with him.
She believes Duthie deliberately picked her as his first victim.
“We met out at the park, carrying on with our friends.
“I’d never had a boyfriend before. I just liked the look of him as he was back then – he was just looking at me in all the right ways, we were flirting and one thing just led to another and we started dating.
“It was quite quick, quite intense – young love. I thought I loved him but I was young and naïve and he was showing me all the right attention.
“We met and within days we were a couple – we did everything together and I was never out of his sight.
“We met in the August and I’d moved in with him by the January. He got the house the day after his 16th birthday and I moved in a couple of days before mine.”
Debbie cites the death of her grandmother of one of a number of factors which made her more vulnerable.
“The abuse started long before we moved in together.
“It was controlling behaviour, like I wasn’t allowed to walk with my head up or wear tight clothes.
“There was lots of red flags from the get-go. He started to manipulate my thoughts and feelings towards my family within weeks.
“My mum and dad had concerns at the relationship – they obviously saw Mark for what he was when I didn’t.
“He made me believe that they didn’t want us to be together and that they were trying to put a wedge between us – which they didn’t, for the right reasons.
“I ended up running away from home and staying with him or with my big sister.
“My relationship with my parents was ruined within two months of me and Mark being together.”
Physical violence
Debbie said things only escalated when they were living together.
“He was in charge of the shopping and he would lock me in the house so I couldn’t go out if he was going to his mum’s or whatever.
“He’d say ‘do you want me to lock the door?’ and if I said no, which I did on occasion, he’d say ‘who have you got coming in?’ or ‘where are you gonna go?’.”
The abuse included physical violence.
“He’d open a cupboard and ‘accidentally’ elbow me.
“He punched me and split my tongue – every time I talked or moved or swallowed it would open up.
“He bought me a bar of chocolate as a sorry but I couldn’t eat it because my tongue kept bursting open.
“It was all deliberate, there was no love there from him towards me.
“It was all about seeing someone who wasn’t in a good place within themselves, seeing them as weak-minded and easy to control.”
The abuse continued outside their home.
“I was in college. He’d stand outside my classrooms to make sure I wasn’t speaking to anyone in the class.
“Then I got a job offer at a nursery and I wasn’t allowed to take it because there was a male janitor – the only male there.
“My career would have been set, instead of working in care homes and struggling on minimum wage.”
‘He was jealous of a newborn baby’
She remembers Duthie’s jealousy over potential male attention resulted in one particularly bizarre episode of behaviour as she cradled a newborn child.
“He went absolutely crazy because I’d held him near my breasts – he was jealous of a newborn baby.”
In the course of their relationship she fell pregnant by Duthie. After forcing her to sleep on their cold bedroom floor, he kicked her repeatedly in the stomach.
At her 12-week scan she discovered she had miscarried but Duthie refused to allow medical intervention.
“The doctor was touching my stomach and he (Duthie) flipped and had to be sent out because the guys hands were cold and I laughed.
“I had to wait another five weeks to pass the baby on my own. As I flushed it down the toilet I was crying and he asked me why I was crying.”
Despite the potential risk to his girlfriend’s health, Duthie still refused to allow her to see a doctor.
‘I thought everybody hated me’
She finally found the strength to leave him after he raped her but convinced her she had not been sexually assaulted.
“He raped me that one and only time.
“It just happened. He didn’t finish – that was something I held onto for a long time. He said to me that because he didn’t finish it wasn’t rape.
“Those words got me through the next 16 years. It wasn’t rape because he didn’t finish – but it was rape.
“That was the end of it for me. It should have been the end when I lost the baby but I don’t know why I stayed – because I felt I had nowhere to go maybe.
“I thought everybody hated me.”
Support group
Police got in touch with Debbie following a complaint from another woman, with seven women eventually testifying in court.
Duthie had an appeal denied earlier this year and Debbie has now started an online support group to try to prevent other youngsters falling into toxic relationships.
“I want children to be aware of narcissistic traits.
“I want them to know what to look for before they are deeply involved. I want to protect other kids from experiencing what I experienced.
“I’ve tried to instil in my children what they should and shouldn’t accept in a relationship because I wasn’t aware of boundaries.
“I don’t understand why there isn’t anything in place now. Domestic abuse has been around forever, and in the past it was accepted but it was secret and hidden.
“Now you have Clare’s Law and things like that, which helps to an extent. But why can’t we teach kids?
“They have sex education, so why can’t there be a class like that, where you are taught to recognise narcissistic traits and about boundaries?
“Narcissistic people are hunters – they seek out their prey. They look for the weak and the vulnerable. They look for people in bad situations.
“They seek that out and they thrive on knowing what they can do to that person. They have that person as a puppet on a string, able to do whatever they want to them.”
If I can save just one girl – or boy – from the grips of abuse I’ve done something.”
Debbie advises any teenager who is questioning their relationship to get out.
“If it doesn’t feel right, walk away.
“If your gut is telling you you are not happy and you are not allowed to be you, walk away.
“If you can see it for what it is from the get-go you are losing nothing, but you gain your life.
‘I am a survivor’
“I didn’t care about who I was as a person for a long time and I don’t want anybody else’s kids to feel the way I feel.
“I’m trying to be who I think I would have been before Mark. But how do I know who I was meant to be? He’s changed my life forever – it will always have a dark place.
“But if I can save just one girl – or boy – from the grips of abuse I’ve done something.”
Despite the effect Duthie has had on her life, Debbie is determined she is not viewed as a victim.
“I am a survivor,” she says, somewhat defiantly.
“I have good days and bad days, but it does not control every aspect of my life.”
Women’s Aid
Dr Marsha Scott, CEO of Scottish Women’s Aid said: “Scottish Women’s Aid advocates for schooling that prepares children and young people for living in our gendered world.
“That means teaching children from the earliest age about their human rights and about the ways that women and children are disproportionately impacted by domestic abuse and coercive and controlling behaviours, behaviours that stem from old-fashioned and harmful gender stereotypes.
“Preventing abuse requires that Scotland grasp the nettle of women’s poverty, lack of power over resources and decisions in their communities and country, and sexism in schools and other public institutions.”
Duthie caged
Mark Duthie, 33, of Barry was found guilty at Edinburgh High Court of a total of 28 charges, committed against seven women, between January 2003 and January 2018.
The judge said apart from raping two of the women, Duthie had also carried out “a sustained course of physical and psychological abuse” against victims over a long period of time.
He was jailed for nine years and told he would be kept under supervision and monitored for a further two. He was placed on the sex offenders’ register indefinitely.
