BARRICADED in a bedroom without access to food, drink or even the toilet, teenager Jasmin-Mae Grindley wept.
All she’d seen for the past 52 days were the same dirty white walls, wardrobe full of kids’ toys, and the double bed she slept in.
Jasmin-Mae Grindley has bravely spoken out and told how she was ‘held hostage’ by her boyfriend for two months in a bedroom where he repeatedly raped herCredit: SWNS
Michael Ball has since been jailed for 19 years for his horrific actionsCredit: SWNS
Jasmin-Mae was mentally and physically abused over a four-month period by her then boyfriend
She’d been there from November 28, 2020 to January 19, 2021.
Piled up suitcases blocked her exit and she was forced to urinate in a cup and throw it out the window.
But she hadn’t been grabbed by a stranger off the street. Her captor was none other than her “true love” – Michael Ball, 31.
Former carer Jasmin-Mae, from Wigan, Greater Manchester, met Ball in October 2020 at a pub and was straight away besotted by his “charming and approachable” manner.
I was kidnapped by stalker & held in bunker… he made sick deal for my life
At first he was kind and generous, even buying her gifts like new clothes and flowers. The relationship moved fast and Ball took her on day trips including twice to Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
But it wasn’t long before his dark side appeared just 10 days after meeting him.
Jasmin-Mae says Ball started controlling her – even banning her from wearing leggings because she “looked like a s***”.
He also beat her and began to isolate her from her family using threats including that he would kill her.
In October 2020 he forced her to quit her job and in November smashed her mobile phone, breaking it, before taking the SIM card and using it to message her family pretending to be Jasmin-Mae and asking them for money.
She recalls: “At the time we were staying in a hotel he was paying for. He had taken me to Blackpool on Sunday and on Monday I told him I needed to leave for work.
“He wouldn’t let me go saying he wanted to be with me all the time and spend our lives together.
“He would say, if you go, I won’t be here when you get back, insinuating that he would hurt himself. I was young and he had gripped my mind and I believed him.
“That’s when he came up with the idea that I should say I have Covid and get two weeks of work. I called my manager who gave me the time off.
“When the two weeks were up I went back in to do a 8am to 2pm shift.
“But by 11am I had 30 missed calls from him.
“When I picked up, he said he didn’t believe I was at work so I Facetimed him and showed him, but he still didn’t believe me and said I had to walk him around the whole building, but I wasn’t able to.
“I couldn’t deal with the stress, so I told my manger I had been sick and she let me go home.
“The next day he persuaded me to quit.”
Jasmin was punched, slapped, strangled, and constantly manipulated and gaslighted between October 2020 and January 2021Credit: SWNS
The bruises Jasmin was given by her abusive exCredit: SWNS
During this period Jasmin-Mae ran away from the hotel where she was staying with Ball back to her mum’s house.
But, covered in bruises from his beatings, her concerned mum to “dragged” her to the police station.
There, Jasmin-Mae denied any wrong-doing.
“I was covered head to toe bruises when I returned home,” she says. At the time me and my mum had a great relationship and she was concerned so took me to the police station.
“I didn’t want to press charges because I thought I loved him. I was under his spell and didn’t think what he had done was wrong.
“He had also told me many times that if I go to the police he would kill me so I didn’t say a word.”
Jasmin’s horrific abuse included a two-month period when Michael locked her in a bedroom and constantly abused her
Terrifying ‘prison’
In late November he locked her in the room which was to become her prison for the next few months – the spare bedroom of a mate’s house.
His friends never suspected anything wrong as Jamin-Mae says Ball would “speak on her behalf”.
She says: “If they asked where I was or what I was doing, he would say I wasn’t feeling very well or I was happy chilling upstairs.
He had also told me many times that if I go to the police he would kill me so I didn’t say a word
Jasmin-Mae Grindley
“He occasionally let me leave the house to go to the shops but only when he allowed me and I had to be with him.
“I was forced to keep my head down and not look at anyone, if I did, he said I was wanting attention which he didn’t like.”
Jasmin-Mae told how he took out almost £2,000 worth of loans in her name and repeatedly accessed her bank accounts.
Michael fed Jasmin oven chips and burgers every other day and wouldn’t let her bathe aloneCredit: SWNS
At one point he also locked her inside a suitcase and another time wrapped a dressing gown cord around her neck and attempted to choke her.
She says: “It started off with him grabbing, punching, and slapping me. It was short bursts lasting seconds – one minute he would be calm, the next there would be anger.
“But over the following months they then became longer and longer, sometimes lasting up to 30 minutes of him beating me.”
Her time spent isolated in the bedroom was especially haunting. “He only fed me oven chips and burgers every other day,” she says. “I could only bathe if he watched or was in the tub with me.”
Unclear what week – or even month it was – Jasmin-Mae noticed one day it was snowing outside and learnt it was January.
It started off with him grabbing, punching, and slapping me
Jasmin-Mae Grindley
She had missed Christmas, the New Year and her mum’s birthday.
She says: “It has started snowing and I had asked him what day it was to which he replied January 5.
“He had been texting my family as if it was me without my knowledge begging them for money eventually ruining my relationships with them so I wasn’t welcome home anyway at the time.
“I felt terrible, I was heartbroken. That’s when I knew I didn’t want to be there anymore.
“I was so broken down as a person – he stripped everything from me and made me believe that only he could love me, only he could want me.”
Jasmin, pictured with more bruises, was told she would be killed if she left her exCredit: SWNS
Sexual abuse
Later that month the abuse turned sexual with him even raping her as she slept.
Jasmin-Mae, now 24 and a stay-at-home mum, says: “He would beg me for sex and I would tell him no until I would give in as it was persistent and the safest thing I could do.
“One day I woke up to him raping me whilst I slept which was just horrific as there was nothing I could do to stop him.
I was so broken down as a person – he stripped everything from me and made me believe that only he could love me, only he could want me
Jasmin-Mae Grindley
“I was scared for my life and was under his constant control.
“I was punched, kicked, strangled, sexually abused, and raped.”
“He kept me locked up like an animal.
“I accepted the abuse because I cared for my life.”
Michael even smashed Jasmin’s phoneCredit: SWNS
End of the nightmare
Jasmin’s “hell” ended on January 19 when, during a house party, Ball left the house.
She ran downstairs and called her nan, who is in her 70s, who then called the police.
“When I heard him leave the house I ran downstairs and asked the first person I saw if I could use their phone,” she says. “I called my mum first to come and pick me up but she was at work.
“When Michael returned, he went upstairs to check on me and then all of a sudden 12 police officers burst into the house.
“Eight came into the living room, and four ran upstairs where they found Michael hiding under a blanket.
“I didn’t feel any better after he was arrested, as now I knew I had to go to court about it all which scared me.”
Michael was arrested by 12 police officers in 2021Credit: SWNS
Jasmin’s swollen lips from her former partner’s abuseCredit: SWNS
He was arrested but bailed. “That was terrifying,” she says. I lived the next five years of my life in fear. “I wouldn’t catch the bus, the train, or go into the town centre.”
Jasmin-Mae says the only reason why she got her job back was because they agreed to pay half of her Ubers.
Jail sentence
In November last year Ball, from Leigh, Greater Manchester appeared at Manchester Crown Court where was found guilty of four counts of rape and two counts of controlling and coercive behaviour in relation to two victims including Jasmin-Mae.
He was jailed for 19 years, a restraining order was put in place and he was ordered to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register.
Now Jasmin-Mae, who is single, has started a domestic abuse survivors’ session.
“I think he is an evil monster but I feel sorry for him as the abuse he put me through is what he must think is love,” she says. “I don’t think his sentence was enough, if it were my choice he would have gotten life.
“Looking back I should have stood up for myself but I was blinded by his charm.”
