Ex-wife of Manchester terrorist reveals that he raped her

"It was an Islamic wedding and he was saying to me ‘all you have to do is say, yes, yes’ that's it,” she said. “They were chanting all of these things off at me, in Arabic, which I couldn't understand. And then that was it – we were Islamically married in his living room.”

Davis revealed that shortly after getting married Al-Shamie – who lived with his parents – became violent and controlling.

"One time I remember being late, and if I was late I'd turn up and he'd grab me by the throat and say things like ‘what have I told you about being late?’

“And I would say what do you mean, I've been stuck in traffic or something, I can't get to you immediately. And he would say: ‘I've told you to be on time. Say sorry to your husband.’ His grip would then get tighter while he would repeat ‘Say sorry, say sorry’.

“Sometimes I would just laugh at him and he would let go of me but then other times his grip would get tighter so I would have to apologise and say sorry.”

And it was not just Elizabeth that Al-Shamie wanted to control, but also her grown-up children. 

“He used to come round to mine a lot and then one particular night he wasn't happy because my son was drinking a can of lager,” she recalls.

“After that he said, ‘I am not coming to your house again, I can't be around your kids the way they are. You've got one drinking alcohol and you've got two girls who are too Westernised, they are going out drinking, they are not fully dressed.’”

Davis now says that she often felt like Al-Shamie was only interested in the physical side of their relationship. 

“The minute I got there [to his house] straight away we would have sex and then after that it was lesson time where he would read passages from the Quran and stuff like that.

“I was also not allowed to leave until I had ‘fulfilled his needs’ and satisfied him – and that could be multiple times. Even if I had problems going on at home or I had to go to the kids he wouldn't let me leave until afterwards.”

The final straw came when he raped her. 

“He basically scraped me up and threw me on the bed,” she said. “I had been saying to him ‘No’ – we had just done it already – but his weight was too much on top of me and I couldn't push him off.

“Afterwards it didn't even register with him what had happened. It was like this was normal. ‘In Islam, you have to fulfil your husband's needs.’”

After that, she began asking for a divorce, which Al-Shamie refused – until just days before he carried out the Yom Kippur attack. 

“Five days before the attack he rang me in the early hours of the morning saying ‘You can have your divorce,’” she revealed. 

“He said he was going on holiday, he didn't say where. He just said he was going away so we wouldn't be able to be together anymore anyways because it would be a long distance.”

Reflecting on life since the attack, she said: “To think I was in a relationship with a person that could do such a thing makes me feel sick because I have been deceived and I just can't believe it. I still question if this is real.

“He's just ruined so many lives hasn't he? One person has destroyed so many people's lives. This has all been a really bad dream for me and I just want to get on with my life.”

She added: “My thoughts are with the Jewish community and those who died because I felt sick for them when it happened for them. I was thinking about their families and what they are going through.”