FOR 20 years Jane West was regularly beaten and kicked until she begged for her life. She thought she would die when her attacker turned on her, using sticks and boots to hit her with.

In fact Jane thinks she wouldn't be telling her story today if she hadn't mustered the courage to leave her husband.

"He would have killed me in the end. I know that," she said.

The 44-year-old mother of three is not alone. Swindon Police attended more than 2,500 incidents of domestic violence between 2000 and 2001.

It accounts for more than a quarter of all serious assaults.

Yet many cases similar to Jane's go unreported for years.

Support workers in Swindon estimate that more than 8,500 children in the town have experienced violence in the home.

Now they have thrown their weight behind a national campaign to stamp out violence against women.

The White Ribbon Campaign aims to tackle domestic violence head on by encouraging victims to blow the whistle on their partners.

Jane is no longer a victim she is a survivor. And since walking out on her violent husband she has managed to turn her life around.

From living in fear she has changed in to a confident, independent women who is using her experiences to help others come to terms with their abuse.

She agreed to relive the terror of her marriage in the hope that it will protect others from the pain of domestic violence.

Jane, the oldest of three sisters, was 18 when she was introduced to Dave John.

After 18 months she discovered she was pregnant and Dave proposed to her.

With dreams of living happily ever after with her new husband and their baby growing inside her, Jane walked down the aisle in 1976.

It was a registry affair in front of close family and friends but Jane remembers feeling as if she was walking on air as they emerged man and wife.

There was nothing to suggest that her loving husband was harbouring a deep-rooted insecurity, which fuelled by jealousy would turn him into a vicious wife-beater.

The newlyweds moved into a rented council house and Jane started a new job as a telephone operator. They had been living together for only a few days when Dave started to find faults with his new wife.

"He would moan at me over silly things, like buying baby clothes he said we didn't need," she said.

Jane put his change of mood down to nerves about becoming a father. But they soon worsened, taking a real turn for the worse when Dave discovered his wife was earning more than him.

"From then on if I bought something for the baby or the house he said I was bragging and mocking him," said Jane.

He had also grown possessive and jealous, berating Jane if she so much as talked to another man, even male relatives.

She was seven months pregnant when he first hit her for being 'moody'.

Jane, who had now given up work, had been with her husband to his work party and spent the evening trying not to provoke him.

"I avoided eye contact with everybody by looking down while he danced around having a great time. He was happy in the taxi on the way home so I thought things would be OK," said Jane.

With the front door closed behind them Dave called his wife a miserable cow. Surprised, she turned around and was met with a fist in her face.

Stunned, with her face stinging from the blow she fell to her knees and wept, cradling her swollen tummy. Dave went to bed, but Jane couldn't sleep that night. Her dreams of a happy family life been shattered in an instant.

In spite of his apologies, Jane said she remembers feeling wary of her husband from then on. She was right to be. Two days later he attacked her again for no reason, leaving her with a black eye and bloody nose.

From then on the beatings became more regular and fierce. Dave thought his hands were no longer enough to control his wife and would instead set about her with belts, shoes and whatever else came to hand.

"I would try to keep as quiet as possible while he was hitting me or he would get even angrier. Eventually I would beg him to stop, all the time wondering how he could do this to the mother of his unborn baby," said Jane.

It was September when Jane's waters broke during the middle of the night. She was nervous about the birth, but even more frightened to have to wake Dave up.

"He told me to go back to bed and wait until the morning so I got up and packed my bag on my own," said Jane.

As was usual in front of other people, Dave pretended to be a doting father and loving partner in front of staff at the hospital. He brought flowers and chocolates for Jane and toys for baby Paul. Like other women in her position, Jane thought the baby signalled the start of a new chapter for the family.

But back home the familiar pattern abuse started again, this time spurred by Dave's jealously of his young son.

A meal he didn't like or a speck of dust was also enough for Dave to justify punching and kicking Jane, sometimes while she was holding the baby.

She knew better than to fight or answer back.

"I tried it once and I came off a lot worse," she said.

By now Jane knew all the tricks. She would use make up to cover her bruises and feeble excuses for how they got there.

She said: "If people ever suspected something they never said. Domestic violence just wasn't talked about in those days."

When the children by then she had Sarah too started to walk and talk Dave found reason to abuse them.

He would mock the little ones, telling them they were stupid and ugly.

Then as they grew older he started to hit them.

They were also forced to watch in silence as Dave beat their mother, usually leaving her bleeding and bruised in a heap on the floor.

Jane's heart was breaking when in 1988 her third child Ben was born. "They were not normal children. They were quiet and withdrawn. I know they wanted to help me but they feared for their own safety and I did mine," she said.

Jane's worst memory stems from what should have been a normal family evening in front on the television.

Paul was then 18 and he and his father were watching a programme together.

It was so trivial that Jane can't even remember what started the row but soon Dave was stood above his son raining punch after punch into his stomach.

Jane jumped to his defence but was also beaten black and blue.

When Dave had finished his son walked quietly to his bedroom and made plans to leave.

One Sunday soon after he walked out. Jane did not protest through fear of provoking another attack. "I was relived he was getting out but I wanted to know where he was going and if he would be safe. But I couldn't even ask," she said.

Aged 38, and having suffered nearly 20 years of mental and physical abuse, in 1997 Jane made the decision to leave too.

A friend told her about the Swindon Women's Refuge and together they packed black bags full of belongings while Dave was at work and the children at college and school.

Jane said: "There had been no row or beating the night before so I don't know why I woke up that morning and decided to leave.

"Something snapped inside me. I didn't want Ben to go through everything that the other two had." Jane remembers pressing the buzzer at the refuge and a voice asking, "Can I help you."

"God please do," Jane says she thought to herself.

At the refuge Jane and Ben were welcomed with open arms but Sarah, who was at college, decided to stay with her father.

"For the first time in 20 years I felt safe. It was like someone had lifted a huge weight from me," said Jane. Support workers helped Jane file for a divorce and now the family, including Sarah, have broken all ties with Dave.

After 14 months at the refuge Jane moved into a new council house with Ben.

Paul, now 25, is married with a baby daughter of his own and Sarah also lives with her partner.

Jane can't quite believe how much has changed. She said: "They say life begins at 40 and it really did for me. I am now the person I was before I married. I can't believe I suffered for so long and can tell you now that I never would again."

Apart from re-discovering her own self worth and helping her children come to terms with what happened, Jane is now a volunteer worker at the refuge, helping other victims learn to survive abuse.

"If you are going through this there is help all the help you need and it is here," she said. For help call the refuge on Swindon 536447.

All names have been changed to protect the identity of the victims