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Living with a Predator
I was flown to the UK by the British Government to be a key witness in a court case.
Predators can take many shapes and forms. Rarely we think of someone that sleeps under the same roof as you. Someone you feel at ease with so that you don’t lock your bedroom door at night. A person who cooks you dinner and shares culture about their home country with you: this, unfortunately, was my big mistake.
It was a glorious London summer. The kind that makes you fall in love with the city again after many long grey months. I had just moved into a new house share out in East London. My childhood friend Lucy made plans to stay for a weekend. We decided to go to a dance music festival on the outskirts of South London on Saturday.
As we were leaving the house for the festival. One housemate Ali passed us in the corridor. I introduced Ali to Lucy, and he invited us to a party that night, I politely declined. Ali was working as a chef and often cooked delicious food for everyone. I really enjoyed our chats where he told me about life in his home country of Uzbekistan.
At the festival, we had what we thought of as the serendipity to bump into a group of guys that we had met backpacking in Cambodia. Lucy had had a fling with one of them named Matt. Lucy and Matt were getting along great…