A young woman who watched as her mother was shot dead in front of her has travelled to Jersey to share her story in the hope it could help others escape abusive relationships.

Georgia Gabriel-Hooper, who is now 22 years old, was invited to be a guest at an International Women’s Day event held by the charity formerly known as the Jersey Women’s Refuge, Freedom From Domestic Abuse (Freeda) on Friday morning.

“My whole life essentially has been abuse”

Speaking to the audience, she said: “My whole life essentially has been abuse. My parents divorced when I was two. My dad had gone down a path of being a drug addict and my mum ended up in another relationship.”

She described how because people put the bruises on her wrists and arms down to her just being “boisterous” at just four years old, but in reality it was from being “dragged up the stairs” by her mum’s new partner at the time.

Despite her mum, Cheryl, “managing to get out of that relationship”, Georgia explained that “the cycle continued”. Cheryl went on to meet Andrew Hopper – the man who would become Georgia’s step-dad, and who, several years later, would kill her mother with a shotgun.

A “charming man”… until “then he wasn’t”

However, Georgia described how, despite her mum initially not liking him, and needing a bit of encouragement to date him, he initially appeared to be a “charming man” who was “well known around the town”.

But while she said he was “fantastic” at the beginning, “then he wasn’t”, she added.

The behaviour change wasn’t sudden, she noted, going on to use the analogy of a boiling frog: if you put a frog in boiling hot water it will jump out immediately, but if you put it in warm water, and gradually turn up the temperature, it won’t realise it needed to get out before it dies.

She also likened the progression of abusive relationships as similar to “carbon monoxide poisoning” – something the victim “can’t smell or taste” as it kills them.

“Isolated”

She described the sort of abuse her mum suffered as coercive control, with Cheryl kept “isolated” from friends and family.

Her mum had not appreciated this fact until she learnt that a close friend had died of cancer she didn’t know she had.

This, Georgia explained, was a turning point for Cheryl, which made her realise she needed change something.

As a result, she decided to go out with her friend – but this led Georgia’s step-dad to accuse her mum of having an affair.

“No one really knows where he drew that connection from apart from the fact he wanted to control her,” she said.

Despite this, Georgia said her mum “carried on doing what she wanted to do”.

Then, one day after he’d been out shooting – an activity that wasn’t out of the ordinary as he was a farmer – Georgia’s step-father returned home drunk and “stomped up the stairs”, angrily shouting at her mum.

He demanded that they discuss their relationship, to which Cheryl replied that she had tried to do for many years, but that he had always ignored her.

When she told him that she was going to watch television, he then proceeded to rip the device off the wall and slammed it into the floor.

Georgia remembered texting her mum to ask if she was ok, to which she replied that Georgia should not leave her room. She recalled struggling to do this, attempting to listen in without getting caught.

She later went in to see her mother, only to find her “shaking” and told her that she needed to “pack her bags”. The pair then went to her grandparents’ home.

“Tracked”

While Cheryl had manager to leave, her estranged husband made continuous efforts to bring her back – including turning up at the grandparents’ home, her friends’ homes and even her workplace.

The mother and daughter moved away to a new rented home in Newport, Shropshire, to try and start a new life away from Hooper.

However, it was later discovered that he’d been monitoring Cheryl’s location through a tracker he put on the bottom of her car.

In January 2018, when Georgia was just 14, tragedy unfolded.

While Georgia and her mother were in the car outside their home, Hooper pulled up in the driveway and blocked them in. The last thing Georgia said she could recall her mother saying was, “Oh my god, he is here.”

It was shortly afterwards that Hooper shot Cheryl, killing her – a crime for which he is now serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 31 years.

Georgia explained that such a sentence is rare in domestic abuse cases. One factor that may have influenced this, she said, was that the killing took place in front of a child. She recalls chasing him after he pulled the trigger, asking repeatedly: “Why?”

Cheryl was just 51 when she died.

Georgia explained that, in the years since, she has chosen to speak publicly about what happened – including at events like the one in Jersey – in the hope that greater awareness of coercive control and abuse might help others recognise the warning signs sooner.

If her story helps even one person leave a dangerous situation, she said, it means her “formidable” mum did not die for nothing.

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Read more from Express on the warning signs of coercive control and the legislation designed to protect Islanders from it…