Page 26 - Phonebox Magazine December 2012

IOUT OF THE DARKNESS
magine waking up one morning and discovering that you have totally Police in 2010. Despite all these signs and the repeated warnings from lost your eyesight. Imagine that you realise that this sudden and all those who really cared for her, Tina continued with the relationship dramatic change is not the consequence of an accidental injury or until it reached its desperate end.
illness, but is the result of a deliberate act of unbelievable, despicable
cruelty by the hand of somebody known to you. Imagine that you go on to discover that the loss of sight is permanent and irreversible and you will never be able to behold the people and places that are near and dear to you again. Tina Nash does not have to imagine these things. In April 2011 her boyfriend blinded her in an attack at their home in Hayle, Cornwall. Shane Jenkin throttled Tina in her sleep until she lost consciousness. He then gouged out her eyes with his thumbs and left her for dead with a shattered jaw and broken nose. Tina’s two young sons, Ben and Liam, were asleep in another bedroom throughout the attack.
Tina Nash did not die from her terrible injuries but regained consciousness the following morning, at which point the horrible realisation began to bath and dumped her shattered body in it with a view to drowning her. Against all the odds Tina survived, but spent the following 12 hours as a captive in her own home. Jenkin then staged a burglary in the property before leaving the scene of the crime. The long delay before Tina was able to get help meant that there was absolutely no chance of saving her sight, despite the valiant efforts of the medical team at Treliske Hospital.
Tina Nash, one of six siblings, was brought up in Hayle and was keen to return there in 2009 when a housing association property became available on the same estate where she had lived before leaving home at the age of seventeen. Her grandmother still lived on the same estate and many of her old friends and family still lived in the locality. Her problems began after she became involved with Shane Jenkin, despite having been warned by friends that he had already served a prison sentence for stamping on a man’s head and leaving him with brain damage. Their tumultuous relationship developed over a number of months, during which time Jenkin somehow increased his hold on her by means of bullying and making her feel worthless. Over the course of those months he became increasingly unpredictable and aggressive towards Tina. He was also spending much of his time watching violent videos and was often in a permanent drunken state. He regularly abused Tina, although he didn’t show any outward violence to her sons when they were in his company. Jenkin’s outlook was very anti-authority and he became obsessed with taking on the police after watching live news coverage of the stand-off between Raoul Moat and the Northumbria
In “Out of the Darkness”, ghost written by Ruth Kelly, Tina Nash explains in detail what life with a violent partner is really like and how she learned to adjust to life without her sight. The book makes for some very uncomfortable reading, and I would imagine that the majority of readers will form the opinion that she was extremely foolish not to pay heed to the obvious signs that the relationship was ill-fated from the start. It is her hope that other people suffering domestic violence will have the remarkably clear throughout the book is that Tina shunned all the efforts made by the police and social services teams over many months to assist her. This was partly out of a misguided loyalty to this vicious thug and out of a belief that she could somehow change his behaviour, but also out of a fear and dread as to what might befall her if she crossed him.

reporter Jon Kay after Jenkin had been sentenced. It was probably the most compelling and moving interview I had ever seen, so I was keen to read Tina’s book as soon as it became available. However, even good background knowledge of the case doesn’t really prepare the reader for the awful account which unfolds in these pages and doubtless some

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In May 2012, just over a year after the vicious attack which blinded Tina Nash, Shane Jenkin was given an indeterminate sentence. This effectively means that he will never be released. At a subsequent appeal in November 2012 Jenkins’ lawyers argued that the sentence should be quashed to allow him to go free when his doctors are convinced that he has beaten his mental illness. The judges ruled that he was dangerous with or without a mental illness and dismissed the appeal. lives forever. I can start looking forward to Christmas, I’m very happy.”
“Out of the Darkness” is published by Simon & Schuster and is available from all the usual outlets at a cover price of £6.99.
ISBN 978-1-4711-1466-3 Stephen.clark89@yahoo.co.uk
Steve Clark
26 Phonebox Magazine