LOOKING between her husband as he stood in the court dock and the victim agonisingly detailing the abuse he’d suffered, Natasha Lowe realised the sickening truth.
Her husband of eight years, David Marshall, was lying. He hadn’t been misunderstood. He was a sex offender – and his victim was a man.
Forty-one-year-old Natasha thought she had a wonderful marriage to Marshall.
“I thought I knew him perfectly,” she says. “It turned out I didn’t. He wasn’t a paedophile but he was a sex offender and his victims were men.
“Is he gay and was I a cover-up? I don’t know. I still don’t.”
She’s speaking out because she knows she isn’t the only woman in this situation, blindsided by a husband or long-term partner who has unbeknown to their wife or girlfriend been committing or has committed the most horrendous of crimes.
Recalling her first introduction to Marshall, now 62, and from Tividale, near Worcester, in early 2012 she says there was an immediate spark.
“He was my driving instructor,” she says. “But I knew of him before then, we were from around the same area.”
As he helped her navigate roundabouts and parallel parking, they chatted about their favourite things. And despite a 22-year age gap, they found they had a lot in common. “We loved similar music,” she says. “I liked 1980s’ music and so did he. We talked about that and other things – normal things. There was nothing untoward.”
Shortly afterwards, having passed her test, he asked her for a drink. She accepted, realised they got on brilliantly and they started dating.
“On our days off, we’d go to the cinema or for meals out,” she says. “We weren’t flashy, but I just loved spending time with him. Six months in, I made a big decision and decided to introduce him to my two children, now adults.
“As a mum-of-two, I was careful about who I let into my children’s lives and I wouldn’t introduce them to anyone unless I was certain the relationship was going somewhere.
“We started going on trips to the park and for walks together.
“I wanted the boys to get to know David as a person, not as a replacement father.”
She says a bond formed “slowly.” “I met his family too and we blended easily into each other’s lives,” she says.
But it wasn’t entirely plain sailing with her parents concerned about the age gap.
“My dad was worried about what my future would look like,” she says. “But once he saw how David treated me – and how relaxed and happy I was – his concerns faded.”
In 2013, around a year-and-a-half after getting together, they moved in together in a three-bed semi detached house in Tividale. Four years later in March, 2016, they married in an intimate ceremony with just close family present.
She says: “Our life was normal. We went on holidays, raised the boys and settled into married life. I’d found stability and companionship, someone to grow old with.”
Things were happy with Natasha working in retail and Marshall switching jobs to become a bus driver.
Until on July 9, 2019 the couple were woken to a banging on the door.
“There were two police officers standing there,” Natasha says. “Of course, straight away my heart leapt. I wondered what had happened.”
But, as they reassured her that her family was safe, they said they needed to speak to him.
He was asked to get dressed and led away.
“I asked them what was going on, I was completely speechless and totally clueless, but they couldn’t tell me much,” she explains.
“They just said David was wanted in connection with an assault. At that point I didn’t know they meant sexual assault so I assumed it was a scuffle or someting similar. Anything sexual didn’t even cross my mind.”
Marshall was held for the day, released on bail that evening and taken to a relative’s home 45 minutes away.
“I went straight to see him,” Natasha remembers. “People might ask ‘why?’ but he was my husband and I loved him. He told me that he had been accused of sexually molesting an adult in the 1980s and 1990s. He was adamant it was untrue.”
Four weeks later he was charged with the offences and in spring 2024, four years after the original arrest because of covid delays, Marshall attended Worcester Crown Court where he pleaded not guilty to all counts. Natasha attended every day, sat in the public bench.
“Beforehand I would have said I was on the fence,” she says.
“I told him he needed to fight it but he kept saying ‘I’m going down’.
“That made me question things.”
Court was an eye-opening experience for her.
“I listened to everything, everyday, really carefully,” she says. “I heard all the evidence. The victims were so brave.
“And as I heard them speak – recount what they’d been through – I thought ‘I know they aren’t lying. No-one can say what they are saying and be lying’.
“It got to the end and I knew and the 12 members of the jury knew too. I wasn’t shocked when he was found guilty.
“He was temporarily released on bail before sentencing and he briefly came home but I said to him: ‘I will be getting a divorce. We will be sleeping in separate rooms. I am not standing by you.’
“I could not condone what he had done to the victims. I am glad he was found guilty and they got justice.”
David Marshall, 62, of Twydale Avenue in Tividale in the West Midlands was sentenced at Worcester Crown Court on Friday 7 June 2024.
Natasha attended as he was jailed to 12 years in prison and one year on extended license after he was found guilty of 15 counts of indecent assault on a male person.
But she says she also feels a lot of “mixed emotions.” “Sometimes I wonder, ‘why was my husband the secret sex offender?’ We were happy before all this happened. But it was happiness based on a lie.”
She says people have not shunned her.
“I’ve got so many questions now. Was I just a coverup? Did he love me? I don’t think I’ll find out.”
But, amazingly, she hasn’t let it impact her relationship with men. “I’m currently engaged again to a 58-year-old man, a former friend.
“It wasn’t easy trusting again but I know that not all people are like him.”
