Peaky Blinders extra who was my ‘perfect fiance’ turned into a monster and beat me unconscious – but escaped jail
Lyndsey Yarwood thought she'd met her dream man in Peaky Blinders and Coronation Street extra Oliver Cox
A WOMAN told how she woke up surrounded in shattered glass and not knowing where she was after being beaten up by her ex – a Peaky Blinders and Coronation street extra.
Hairdresser Lyndsey Yarwood, of Melksham, Wiltshire, told Fabulous Digital what happened to her was “sad and scary”.
Oliver Cox, 33, seemed like a perfect boyfriend when he started wooing Lyndsey, 35, on online dating site Plenty of Fish in early 2018.
What she didn’t realise is he had actually paid just £36 to change his name and so dodge “Clare’s Law” – where people can look up the histories of boyfriends to see if they have been convicted of domestic abuse.
Lyndsey told Fabulous Digital how initially her relationship with Cox, who she met after five months of chatting online, was happy.
He wooed her with rose-petal baths, romantic dinners and by helping the mum-of-two with her children. On 7 October 2018, he stunned her by proposing during a trip to London.
Overwhelmed, Lyndsey accepted and started planning their life together.
"He was everything you see in rom-coms: rose-petal baths, cooking dinner, brilliant with the kids. And so believable,” she said.
But their newly engaged bliss quickly soured.
Ten days later Cox claimed Lyndsey’s ex had been sending him threatening messages online.
It later turned out he was sending the messages to himself from a fake Instagram account.
Then on 19 November 2018, they hosted an engagement party with pals.
But after going home, Lyndsey woke in the middle of the night with Cox right next to her “looking angry”.
She explained: “He grabbed my wrist and started accusing me of cheating on him. He was going through my phone and calling me a slag.”
He then smashed up his phone, prompting Lyndsey to go to bed in tears.
But the next morning he claimed he couldn’t remember anything from the night before and just said: “Oh my god, I’m so sorry”.
Believing he was genuine, Lyndsey agreed to forget it.
But on 8 December 2018, Lyndsey received a worrying message on Facebook from Cox’s ex-girlfriend who urged her to “look into his past”.
She was aware of Clare’s Law and contacted Wiltshire Police and asked them to run a search on him.
She was relieved to be told there was nothing of concern in his past and put the message down to his ex being a jilted love rival.
Then, while celebrating his birthday in December 2018, they argued on a night out, with Cox accusing her of “ruining my birthday”.
When they got back to the hotel he grabbed her and punched her in the face, leaving her with two black eyes and bruises to her body.
Lyndsey said: "I woke up in a completely different area of the room facing the window and I looked around. There was glass everywhere, just shattered glass all over the place.
"I don't know how long I'd been unconscious for.
“I start packing the bags, I got changed out of my night clothes and I said 'I'm going home' but he followed me.
“I drove the car to the main part of the car park and stopped.
"I said 'I'm not going anywhere with you'. He jumped out of the car, came round to the other side then punched me in the jaw twice. Then he bundled me over to the passenger side.
"He said 'if I can't be with you I might as well end it now'. I just kept quiet.
"He stopped at the garage and got me a cold pack of bacon to put on my bruise.
"I was hoping he was faking his threats for attention but I had it in my mind that he could possibly kill us. I was thinking 'oh my god, the kids are going to have no mum'.”
The next day, Lyndsey decided enough was enough and fled to her mum's.
Lyndsey reported Cox to Wiltshire Police for his violence and later learned he had changed his name by deed poll to Bartholomew Milben.
And sickeningly, five days prior to attacking Lyndsey, brute Cox had even shared a post on Facebook praising Clare's Law as something that not only helps women but can “defend men who have been labelled”.
I woke up in a completely different area of the room facing the window and I looked around. There was glass everywhere, just shattered glass all over the place.
Lyndsey Yarwood
On 27 February he admitted assault by occasioning actual bodily harm after attacking the single mum but walked free from court with an 18-week suspended sentence.
Cox, of Portsmouth, was given a two-year restraining order from contacting Lyndsey and ordered to pay her £725 compensation, £115 victim surcharge and £85 court costs.
He blamed his behaviour on his use of steroids but claimed he was “not a monster”.
Lyndsey blasted: “I’m pretty sure it’s going to take for him to actually kill someone for the courts to punish him properly.
“No wonder women don’t go through with pressing charges for domestic violence.
"He was given a restraining order, but there's nothing to stop him standing outside my house as long as he doesn't contact me."
Lyndsey decided to speak out to call for a change in the law to ensure that anyone who changes their name by deed poll remains linked to the previous moniker.
She said: "I've no idea why he didn't come up on Clare's Law. He managed to get through somehow.
"The amount of phone calls I had to make was unbelievable.
“I think with Clare's Law, every single recorded name needs to be linked to the same person.
"It costs £36 to change your name by deed poll. There needs to be a register for offenders that people can just go on.
“The hardest thing for women in this situation is you think with your heart.
“I just pray the next victim doesn’t fall for his conman ways his sob stories. I hope enough people see his face and see what he’s capable of."
She believes Cox slipped through the net because he repeatedly changes his name - previously calling himself Darren Berry, Bart Milben and other variations of these."
Who were Cox's other victims?
The year before attacking Lyndsey, Cox was found guilty of assault by beating and given 100 hours of community service, a rehabilitation course and a restraining order preventing him from contacting ex-girlfriend Rosie Benson.
Rosie met Cox on Facebook in 2016 but after dating him for 18 months they broke up - however she says he continued to turn up at her house.
She claims she would find him sleeping in her outside toilet building or in his car and he even faked seizures for sympathy.
Rosie, from Bolton, Lancashire, said: "It's been hell. He'd knocked on my door after punching himself in the face to say he'd been attacked round the corner.
"I would think 'how many times can you be attacked around the corner?' We didn't live in a bad area at all."
Jen Atherton considers herself one of the 'lucky ones' as she was not attacked by Cox - though Merseyside Police still told him to stop any further contact with her.
Jen, from Wirral, Merseyside, said: "On Facebook when I was talking to him he was Bart Milben.
"He had an empty scrapbook for us to put our memories in for the future, and a Beauty and the Beast-style rose. I'd only been speaking to him for a week.
"Two days later, he came to my house with a big bunch of flowers.
"We were watching TV and he made a few snide comments that I hadn't taken a picture of the flowers and posted them on social media.
"I could see he was messaging girls and I said 'you're having a go at me about not posting the pictures of flowers - you're messaging girls?'
"He went mental. He was stomping round the house, shouting. He said he was going to kill himself."
Even after they broke up, Cox would not leave her alone and she was forced to contact the police.
Jen said: "He was giving me s*** for about two weeks. I called the police. They [told him he was not to contact me]."
A Wiltshire Police spokeswoman said: “This case has been referred to our Professional Standards Department and a review is currently ongoing to determine what happened in this case and why a disclosure was not made. “Due to this investigation, it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
When contacted for comment, Cox said: “I changed my name to Bartholomew by deed poll.
"It was for a fresh start and a sign of a new me, but I did it at a time when I was very confused about myself.
"What happened that night is disgusting and shouldn't have happened. It ruined what could have been a brilliant relationship.
"I ain't a monster. I've had some serious problems unfortunately, when I've had a drug addiction and took steroids.
"Unfortunately because I had a mental health problem you're adding to a chemical imbalance in your brain.
"There's people out [there] and women that get into certain situations.
"What I want to gain from this now is help women in this situation and also help males who have mental health [issues] and don't know how to handle relationships.
"I've admitted my wrongs, I'm not hiding away from that and I want to do things to help other people in the future.
"I'm not condoning what happened that night with me and Lyndsey - I hate it. I'm mortified by it and I cry every day.
“I have accepted responsibility for what has happened.”
What is Clare's Law?
Wiltshire Police is conducting an internal review into how it handled Lyndsey’s “Clare’s Law” request - which is named after Clare Woods, 36, who was murdered by her boyfriend George Appleton in Salford, Gtr Manchester, in 2009.
Her dad Michael Brown campaigned for the introduction of Clare's Law, arguing her death would have been prevented had she known her partner's history.
In 2014 the law - knowns as the Domestic Violence Closure Scheme - was passed, allowing police to disclose information on request about a partner's previous history of domestic violence or violent acts.
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