Mel survived a campaign of terror from her partner. It took her years to find justice

An alarming number of rape and domestic violence victims face ongoing danger even after seeking and even achieving justice, experts have warned, as a Sydney survivor revealed her predator’s years-long reign of terror.

*Mel spent two years in a coercive prison. Her ex-partner’s movement tracking, device interrogation and secret call recordings culminated in rape, strangulation and murder threats. It took four more years to see some form of justice. Her fear will last a lifetime.

Last month, a jury took just under two hours to convict Nick Kamel, 30, of serious sexual and domestic violence offences.

But Mel remains terrified. She described an intimidation campaign spanning from when they first met to his conviction, and of her struggle to be believed.

“Women are killed by men who are out on bail; I was worried that that would be me,” she told the Herald.

“He thought his life was ruined before this. When he gets out, what happens to me then?”

Support services warn that without major system reform and community attitude change, perpetrators will continue to control and endanger victims, despite legal monitoring and punishments.

This masthead became aware of Kamel’s case through independent sources and reached out to Mel. She shared her story to tell other survivors they are not alone.

Court documents detail a harrowing escalation of abuse that began shortly after they connected on a dating app.

Red flags emerged after one date. Kamel, who claimed to have a law degree but was jobless and transient, became furious when Mel cancelled a meet-up due to a family event.

Months later, Mel was forced to abandon New Year’s Eve plans as Kamel texted her friends claiming she was sick. Enraged that she had slept with someone else during their first week of meeting, he spent the night trawling through her phone as she sat beside him.

“He would interrogate my whole life, basically,” Mel testified. She later discovered he recorded more than 400 of their calls. Many were played to the jury, causing her conflicting feelings about further privacy invasion.

“I felt sick and shocked to know that it was the whole time, and every call,” she told the Herald.

Kamel regularly searched her devices and forced her to leave her laptop at his apartment. He took screenshots of private texts and stole intimate images from years earlier, threatening to leak them to her family or publicly post them if she angered him.

Mel was made to install the movement-tracking app Life360. They communicated exclusively on the message-deleting app Wickr, where Kamel used the disturbing usernam